The bookstores to pitch, section by section.
Oxpium builds the list of bookstores in your area, finds the owner who decides, tells you when a store starts hiring or books authors, and runs the campaign.
- 7,800bookstores and newsstands in the US
- 66,000people working in bookstores and newsstands across the US
- 17%have their owner in classic professional databases
- < 8 minfrom the first sentence to a live campaign
Every bookstore in your territory, sorted by what it sells.
Describe the store the way a sales rep would: a general indie, a comics shop, a kids' bookstore with a busy events calendar, two staff or ten. The agent searches public sources, job postings and professional databases, leaves out the chains if you ask, and hands you a list, not a page of results.
- Reading the request
- Public sources · 74 bookstores in Austin
- Filter · no chains
- Cross-checking and de-duplicating
31 independent bookstores, sorted by number of reviews.
An area
A city, a county or a radius around your warehouse: the agent covers the whole area and hands you one list, with no duplicates.
The kind of store
General indie, comics and manga, children's, used and rare, stationery and gifts: describe it, and the agent reads listings and sites to sort.
Independent or chain
The agent groups locations by company: keep the independents, and leave out the national chains and the book aisles of big-box stores.
Events and hiring
Stores that host author events every month, or that are hiring booksellers right now: criteria you combine in the same sentence.
The owner, their email, and what's on the shelves.
In an independent bookstore, the owner picks the vendors, the point-of-sale system and what goes on the front table, often with a buyer or a partner. The agent fills in the columns your campaign needs, row by row, and verifies every email before adding it.
- Reading the request
- Reading websites · 31 bookstores
- Verifying emails
28 contact emails found and verified.
The website email
The agent reads each bookstore's website, keeps the contact or orders address published there, and verifies it before adding it.
The owner
The owner, with a verified email and a cell number when there is one. In most indies, they meet the reps and sign off on new lines.
What it sells
General, children's, comics, mystery, used: the agent reads the website and listings and notes the focus, plus side sections like games.
Online orders and events
One column says whether the store sells or takes holds online, another how many author events its calendar lists for the month.
Automations that keep an eye on the bookstores for you.
Once the list is built, Oxpium keeps going without you. Each automation reruns its search on schedule and adds what just changed to the top of the list: a new store, a job posting, a filling events calendar, a new section. Those are your signals, and they show up on their own.
- Job postings · 5 new around Austin
- Matching postings to stores
- Updating the list
Latest runs
- Today+2
- Yesterday+1
- Fri, Oct 90
- Thu, Oct 80
2 bookstores posted a job since yesterday.
Hiring
Every morning, the agent flags the stores on your list that post a job: bookseller, children's buyer, events coordinator, holiday help.
New stores
Every Monday, the bookstores that just showed up in business listings in your area land at the top of the list, with their address.
Author events
Every week, the agent reads each store's events page and flags the ones that just booked several author talks or signings.
Your own watch
Any watch you can write in one sentence, like a games or stationery section announced on the website: the agent reruns it and flags it.
A campaign that steps aside for the holidays.
Booksellers unpack the new releases in the morning and hand-sell all afternoon; on Saturdays, they don't have a minute. Call Tuesday to Thursday, late morning. Email from your own mailbox, calls from your browser, an agent step that reads each store's website and events page, and the campaign stops as soon as they reply. From Thanksgiving to New Year's, don't expect an answer.
Subject A gift table at store?
Each variable is a column of your list, filled in by the agent.
Late morning, midweek
Emails and calls go out Tuesday to Thursday between 10 am and noon, once the boxes of new releases are unpacked and shelved.
Clear of the holidays
Skip Thanksgiving to New Year's and back-to-school week. From January to June, owners have time to meet a rep and try a new line.
Calls from the browser
You call straight from your browser. Every call is recorded, transcribed and summarized on the store's row, ready for the next call.
Stops on reply
As soon as a bookseller replies to an email, the campaign stops for them: the next follow-up never goes out, and you take it from there.
Frequently asked questions
Write “independent bookstores in Portland rated 4.5 and above, no chains”. The agent searches public sources and professional databases, groups locations by company, leaves out the national chains, and hands you the list with each store's rating, number of reviews, phone and website. It takes a few minutes.
Ask for each store's focus: the agent reads the website, the listing and the events page, and notes general, children's, comics, mystery or used, plus side sections like stationery or games. Add the owner, with a verified email and a cell number when there is one.
Tell the agent once: “every Wednesday, flag the bookstores on my list that list three author events or more this month”. The agent reads each store's events page, compares it with last week, and the busy ones land at the top of your list.
An email that places your line next to what the store already sells, a follow-up the agent writes from each store's website and events page, then a late-morning call. Emails go out from your own mailbox, Tuesday to Thursday, and the sequence stops as soon as a bookseller replies.
For 500 bookstores with their website read, their focus noted, 320 emails and about 90 cell phones, count around €65 of data on top of the subscription. An agency typically charges €1,500 to €2,500 for a comparable list, delivered once and never updated.See pricing
Yes. The agent groups locations by company and leaves out the national chains, the big-box stores and the college bookstores run by a contractor, if you ask. You can also keep only the stores with an events calendar, or only the ones with a children's section.
Related industries
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