Welcome  back to Member Monday.  Today it’s my pleasure to share a piece by Richard Lucas on how he and his lovely wife, Abby, came to be the unlikely owners of All About Books.

All About Books

By Richard Lucas

It wasn’t a lifelong dream, even though two generations of Lucas’ had all ready done it. My grandfather started Lucas Books in Berkeley. It wasn’t even a short-term plan. We both had jobs. It just sort of fell into our laps. In 2001, we found an ad about a bookstore for sale. My wife, Abby, was ready to do something new, I was completing my latest novel, so we checked it out. It was obvious that the current owners had had enough and they agreed to a good price and we decided, what the heck.

That was eleven years ago and we are still at it. I have joined Abby in running the store full-time and have since completed three more novels. We survived the economic downturn in 2008, barely. People started coming back to books for entertainment.  E-books became popular and cut into the business, but soon people found that not everything was available and used bookstores to fill in the gaps. The entire shopping center on Lake Blvd where we were located was suffering so we decided it was time for a change.

In February of this year we opened our new location on Court St in downtown Redding. Focusing on the revitalization of the area, we have joined forces with the Shasta Art Council for the Second Saturday Art Night. Dozens of businesses stay open late one night a month to promote local art, music, theater and for us, authors. Each event we featuring local authors for book signings. We have established a Local Author section, prominently displayed near the front of the store.  As a local author, I realize how hard it is to get any kind of exposure for your books. We hope that our efforts will bear fruit and allow everyone access to a larger audience. Stop by and see what we are doing and join us each Second Saturday night.  For more information on Second Saturday Art Night, please visit the Writers Forum Calendar of Events Page.

A Note from the Webmaster: Writers Forum has the author’s permission to publish this work. The author retains full copyright ownership and protection. This work may not be reproduced or used in any way without the permission of the author.  If you’re a member in good standing, please consider submitting a piece of your work to share.  Essays, poems, songs, articles and any other stand alone pieces are welcome.  To submit your piece, please e-mail it to webmaster, Alicia McCauley, at writersforumwebmaster@gmail.com.   Members featured here are guests in our Writers Forum house.  Treat them as such in the comments section and enjoy this beautiful thing we call writing.