Petra Smith opened the Likely Story and More bookstore to provide people a space to escape reality and unwind with a good book.
The Wildwood resident said it was about a year ago when she first had the idea to open the fiction-only bookstore, which is located in Downtown Leesburg, 309 W. Main St., Leesburg.
“I was visiting the Writer’s Block Bookstore in Winter Garden, which is now closed, and I said to my friend, ‘What if I were to do this?’” Smith said. “She encouraged me and I went ahead and did it. I started looking into getting my business license and I started buying books from publishers and getting to know the different relationships I would have to build while still doing markets on the weekends.”
Before opening the bookstore, Smith developed her business acumen by participating in the Girls Night Out Market events in Ocala. She said the positive feedback from customers helped push her to open the brick-and-mortar store.
“We always had really good participation during the market,” she said. “Every market, people wanted to buy different books from us. One of our most popular items was the Blind Date With A Book.”
For that novel idea, Smith wrapped select books in decorative paper so readers wouldn’t know what they were buying.
“We picked the genre, but they didn’t know what it was going to be,” she said. “People loved the wrapping we chose and it keeps them from judging a book by its cover. Those are probably our biggest sellers and we sell out every market.”
Smith’s challenge in managing the market she still participates in and the Likely Story and More bookstore is striking the right balance of the genre of books to sell.
“We try to keep it to as many independent authors as we can, but we also have to see what is selling the best,” she said. “We have to find a balance between the two, so we try to include a little bit of everything. We have a few traditional titles, but we have a lot of independent authors as well.”
Decorating the bookstore was equally important to Smith as researching and buying the books to sell. She chose greens and tans to create its cozy atmosphere.
“Those were my wedding colors and it makes me feel cozy to have those colors,” she said. “When we came to look at the building, it was perfect because the wall was already this green color, so we just had to match it. When I saw this place with that color already there, I was like, ‘It’s meant to be.’”
Smith said she wants her customers to feel like they are walking into a magical forest from the moment they open the door.
“I didn’t want it to just be, ‘OK, we shopped around and we can now we leave,’” she said. “There’s a couch and chairs in front of the fireplace if you want to sit. As far as the front windows, they’re very foresty with an enchanted garden theme. That is me to a T, because I love fantasy. As cheesy as it sounds, for me, a book is a getaway and I feel like the bookstore kind of channels that.”
Mark Kennicott, of Eustis, said he stopped by the bookstore after dropping off two donated copies of his book, “Griffyn Stone,” to the Leesburg Public Library.
Kennicott said, even though the bookstore is close to the library, it provides a different experience.
“This is such a cozy space and the aesthetic is so warm,” he said. “You can tell she puts a lot of care into the store and she deeply cares about books. This really feels like a bookstore that can be a happy place for books.”
When the bookstore opened its doors on July 19, Smith said the line went out the door and wrapped around the corner for the first two hours. That affirmed her belief she was in the right community.
“The community was just so, so happy,” she said. “The amount of compliments we got on the store was just so validating. Independent bookstores can be scary, because if you’re not in the right community, it could fail. So, there’s always that fear. But I felt like on opening day I was like, ‘Wow, this is exactly what the community needed.’ I think it was a perfect addition.”
Sharon Harrington, of the Village of Fernandina, said when she first learned about the the bookstore, she was excited and when she first walked in, she was blown away be the level of design detail throughout the small store.
Harrington, who writes under the pen name Ashley Scott, said she hopes to get her book about two runaway cats who fall in love, “The Queen and the Tom,” on the shelves in the store.
“When I thought about it, I said, ‘Hallelujah, there’s a bookstore that’s not a part of a big corporation,’” she said. “I was really impressed by the layout of the books, the decoration and even the smell (of the store). I love to have a book in my hands — to be able to crack open the spine and feel the pages. To have this here, I think it’s incredible. It is amazing for the community to have this small, yet comfy space to browse through books you may not see in other places.”
Since Likely Story and More’s opening, Smith has hosted several events — including book signings, midnight book release parties and a cat adoption event in partnership with the Lake County Humane Society.
“I didn’t want this to be a place where you just come to buy a book; I wanted it to be a community,” she said. “In these three weeks and over the year, I’ve made a lot of friends. I’m not doing this for money. I want book lovers to have something fun to do in the area.”
For more information about Likely Story and More and its events, visit likelystorybooks.com.
Staff writer Brea Jones can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5414, or brea.jones@thevillagesmedia.com.
