By Zoe Perzo
Em and Em’s Books is an online and pop-up independent bookstore based in Buffalo, New York. The store offers both new and used books, but specifically focuses on work by LGBTQIA2S+, BIPOC, and women authors. While we’ve seen many bookstores curate similarly mindful collections, this store takes it one step further: each month a portion of its profits is donated to a different charity. I met with co-owners Emma Hayes and Emily Graham to learn more about the store’s origin, operation, and future goals.
Hayes and Graham had been friends for more than a decade before they went into business together. For a long time, they viewed opening a bookstore as a retirement dream or an inside joke. But in 2020, the pandemic forced everyone to re-evaluate their lives, and Hayes and Graham realized their bookstore dream could be something more.
“A ‘what if’ became a ‘why not,’ and it kind of snowballed from there,” they told me.
In 2022, Em and Em’s opened its metaphorical doors, with a highly curated selection of used books by diverse authors.
“We had become radicalized by the selection at major bookstores,” Hayes explained. “We wanted to prioritize diverse books by diverse authors as well as primarily used books. It was more economically feasible to start, and then it became fun to try to find books that fit our criteria in the best shape we can. We wanted to stock mostly newer books to give people a viable and sustainable alternative to shopping at major retailers.”
And each month, they donate a portion of their profits to a different charity.
“It felt like the next logical step for us to take,” Hayes and Graham said. “As a queer and partially Native-owned business, we feel strongly about helping make our world better however we can. We focus mostly on LGBTQIA+, Indigenous, and local organizations, but we’ve also donated in response to major events like the fires in Hawai'i, abortion bans, or the genocide in Gaza.”
For now, Hayes and Graham are the only employees at Em and Em’s Books, so they’ve set up a system to help them organize all their responsibilities.
“One of the first pieces of advice we got was 'friends don’t always make good business partners,’ Graham explained. “So dividing up our tasks and figuring out what specific roles we each preferred early on was essential to maintaining both our friendship and our partnership.”
“We complement each other pretty well.” Graham said. “I'm the resident extrovert, so it helps that I take on more of the front-facing roles, while Emma Hayes handles more of the behind-the-scenes work.”
While the task of anticipating and splitting up all the possible responsibilities a business might face can seem daunting, Hayes and Graham agree the results have been worth it.
On top of proactively splitting responsibilities, Graham recommends new small business owners establish regular work hours, routines, and boundaries to help avoid burnout.
“Figure out your limits and treat this like a ‘regular’ job! Set up boundaries and develop the discipline not to exceed them,” Graham said. “One of the benefits of owning our own store is we get to call the shots on finding that healthy work-life balance.”
Even with these systems in place, Em and Em’s Books has hit a few challenges along the way. But they’ve embraced them, adapted, and built a community.
“As a pop-up store, it’s definitely been a challenge to curate stock for different events,” Hayes and Graham said. “You never quite know who will show up. Especially as a primarily used bookstore, it's a challenge (but also very fun!) to find books for different themed markets. But there's nothing more exciting than to have people recognize us around the community and come to multiple events to buy books from us.”
“I wish I had known just how great community support can be.” Hayes admitted. “I was very anxious at first, not knowing how this venture would go. But we've gained traction in our community. We have repeat customers and market organizers who reach out to us unprompted to vend at their events. We wouldn't have been able to sustain our pop-up business model for the last few years without the support of fellow businesses and people in our community and I couldn't be more grateful.”
Thanks to the outpouring of support, Hayes and Graham are hoping to open a brick and mortar location in the future.
Though they’re starting to wrap up their pop-up events for the year, if you’re in the Buffalo area you can catch Em and Em’s Books at The Merry Shelley (a literary themed romantic horror bar!) in December!
You can also find the store online at emandemsbooks.com or on Instagram and Facebook!