With Janet Webster jones who is the owner of source booksellers in detroit about the shutdown has affected our business. Janet webster jones, it is an update five minutes into the covid pandemic. We have quite a lot to say this type. I get so much again for having us on cspan. You all are so dear to our hearts and i look at you at home a lot, so you have helped us really improve our business by the things that you do. We have really had to have an experience with back and forth, open close come up and done that is happening i think with everybody across the country because we take a little step four and we have to a little bit. I think that is the mode of the day as they would say. When we shut down the pivoted right away to online sales but it took a little while for that to happen. So we quickly moved ourselves to online sales and begin to sell the online website. In addition to that we also have added, people have added the phone calls, emails, the instagram and facebook request as well which was really a big surprise for us. Alyson is really managed to do that. Alyson is really managed all of the online sales, which means we are sending out books from the store directly the people. Then we kind of move towards having people pick up at the door because the governor did lift some of our restrictions and allowed for curbside can we call it door pickup because our curve is full bicycles in cars and people so we dont want to anything out on the curb. We call it door pickup. With that we are able to take in people by way of credit card or if they wish to pick up from online sales, so we do that. Its really cause a different kind of complication in the way we do business, and its exciting because we are learning something every day. Thats kind of whats happening between. And that is your daughter, the coowner, Alyson Jones Turner who has now joined us. What has been your experience since we talked to you last in may . We had been very grateful that publishers have offered us a few Virtual Events and also participation being booksellers for Virtual Events. So thats really helped our sales. Right. The American Booksellers Association and our Regional Association independent Book Association has had regular zoo meetings or activities for all of us talk to each other across the players as i say. Were finding that many of us are experiencing the same thing even though it may vary a a lie bit from store to store and from ice to place. Thats been very helpful and i think very encouraging and enlightening for all of us. Even though had been separated by distance we are really connected to each other through the work that we do, the ideas that we have entered the customers that we share. Im just so grateful for the great lakes independent bookstore association. Have you been able to reopen your doors yet . So we did for a minute and then we didnt, and then we get again and then we didnt. But we havent opened wide open to the public because im scared. Scared. Im a little afraid. But we have come to as we progressed through the summer is that i knew we have many coming up from the south, the southern part of the United States during this time of year. First of all because of climate but second all because of family over the years. People have often come to detroit for family reunions and all that. So i felt really uncomfortable about being just to open and now were finding theres uptick in cases in michigan as well. Not to the degree as in the south. So i thought we were just have to have short pickup hours on the weekend and can it keep our doors close. When people come to pick up we do welcome them to come and browse around if you like, and they are very good about that. We have our masks and our sanitation station right at the door. We are really learning as we go, taking baby steps and looking to see how this door response and how our customers respond. Janet and alyson, we talk to you last on may 5 and that was prior to the killing of george floyd in minneapolis. How did that as a black owned business, how did that affect you . It affected us in two ways. We have a lot of compassion for the family and for our community in particular that resist Police Brutality and police violence. And so when the marchers came by our store, we cheered them on. We also, i think it all the ways that we could offer information to those who are interested in learning about prison abolition, the role of the police, and just all those issues. Right. And we also were able to benefit really from the fact that we are primarily a Nonfiction Book store. We have had copies of all the like the big five books they got very popular all of a sudden, in so we were able to sell quite a few books to people and people really call them is to we actually had some of the books that were taking on such as life of their own after that happened. We also as i said we had contact with other booksellers for hearts were going out to the bookstore there was right there in minneapolis. That kind of community, sensitivity has come , not onlys right here in detroit but also across the country. Have you worried that you might have to close down at all, janet . I dont even go there. I really dont. I havent when it first happened i knew instinctively that we would not close, and instinct told me that if you close your to work hard to reopen. So i didnt want to do that. Fortunately, we were positioned well in the community as well as in the business side to create an online business. Which is really carried us. In addition to it, we are also part of the Neighborhood Organization called midtown detroit and they will have does find grants and funds to help us get our legs up again because it was a shock initially. Did you mean close because of fear of our building . No, no, no. Because of a covid pandemic. Just starting i guess in march assumes that pandemic when it was at its worst here, all stores, all retails closed. We didnt have a choice. Weve been kind of teetering with the reopening part for our doors, but yeah, we had to close with everyone else. And now i think whats happened is that our online sales, our phone calls which we get all the time from our wonderful customers, people that we dont know, they hear about us in one way or another. I think i have to say this in quite an uptick in interest in books by lack authors or books about the whole issue of race and racism in the country. We just got the wonderful new book today by isabel wilkerson. This idea is really come into fruition where people are wanting to know, why didnt i learn this in school . Or i didnt know this. A lot of us did know those things at the pandemic has cost us to pause come to wait a minute, to think and to begin to respond in new and different ways. We didnt consider closing in that way but we have changed a great deal in terms of how we do this, this and this and other Business Needs to be done during this time. As a Small Business did you accept any stimulus funds from the federal government that were offered for the Small Business administration . We toyed with the foreign minister anna never could get my arms around the use of a ppp, the protection plan. So i tried a couple times but it really didnt get through and it finally came to become i said this really isnt for us. In the meantime, so i kind of backed away from it and we did not go forward with i started a couple applications but they got bungled up with something so just took it as thats a sign that maybe this is not for me right now. But what did happen is our local Organization Tech town was offering some monies in those early days which they gave to us which was really wonderful. That kind of helped us get steady for a minute. Then we had another grant or two or three, the detroit Economic Corporation had another grant so that really helped us out and kind of get steady. And now i dont want this to be real Common Knowledge but we did get some money from our Charitable Organization and is able to get back some of it because i know weve been able to move along pretty well for now. I dont know how long will last. I dont know if this online sale will become the way that people do for a long time, but for the moment we able to give back some of that so i felt good about that because i knew there are other stores struggling in a new and different way. Alyson jones turner, what have you learned about online retail, and that even shipping across the u. S. . Yes. Yes, so weve been blessed with orders from all over the country and having to learn about shipping and handling and even some canadian sales because we are very close to canada. Canada is south of detroit. We have learned, i learned a lot and i have depended so much and alyson because shes really quick and to understand the systems very well. I getting a little better at it, but it really has made a big difference in to how we do business with people. Someone said to me, ive had opportunity to have several radio and television interviews, and one of the report said, janet likes to talk to people at the store and now shes transferred to the phone. Im the phone answer so i am up front line one person to answer the phone and begin to take in those kinds of orders. So i too, i tried to be as consider about people who were on the phone. Many times they are brushy and sometimes they are frightful and afraid to this gives me a chance to kind of calm them down and say lets you with this book will do, lets see if we can find this book for you and we will call you back. We have done a lot of our Community Work really by telephone. As you know Janet Webster jones, ive met you a few times and ive never known you to be shy. I think that was in my younger years. If people are interested in contacting you, whats the best way . I think the best way is on source booksellers. Com. You can communicate with us to our email or if youre looking to purchase a book online, and our social media, we are source booksellers on facebook and instagram and on twitter we are source uk sellers. All right. Well put up the sourcebooksellers. Com and let people go from there. Janet webster jones, when did you open your store . We begin selling books in detroit in november 1988 but i count the years 1989 so we been business for 30 plus years now. Weve had several different ways of doing business so this one has made a fourth way of doing business in the book industry. We started this dangers going to what people had defense and then we were in the collective or and we came here to a brick and mortar thats just us and now were in the online business. Its fun for me to make these changes and its challenging to grow in new and different ways so i appreciate it. Mother and daughter only of source booksellers come Janet Webster jones and Alyson Jones Turner. We appreciate the update and we will talk to you in a few months if we have to. Good. Thank you so much. Byebye. President trump travel to kenosha, wisconsin, today to protest that and a discussion about Community Safety following the civil unrest after another Police Shooting of a black man. That supply for 2 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Enjoy tv on cspan2