April 6, 2023 - EyeClarity Podcast
I had the pleasure of interviewing Ed Justus, the owner of Talk Story Bookstore in Kauai, on my show ahead of my book signing this Friday, April 7th from 5-7 pm. Ed and I talked about how he started his store and what it’s like to run a small book store in Kauai. Enjoy the show!
Be sure to check out Talk Story Bookstore on Instagram.
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
books, bookstore, authors, story, kawaii, friday night, business, customers, talk, started, book signings, generally, thought, sell, hobbies, debt, meeting, david bach, podcast, friday
Hello, everyone, it’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberne.com.
00:01
Hey everybody, it’s Dr. Sam and I’d like to welcome you to a special EyeClarity podcast today. So we have on the line, the owner of talk story books in kawaii gentleman’s name is Ed Justus. And I am doing a book signing at the bookstore this coming Friday. And well, I was curious about having it on and you know, as an independent bookstore, there are not as many of those I would like to see. But anyways, let’s bring Ed on to the program. So Ed, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you started the bookstore and give it give us your story.
00:52
Sure, thank you for having me on Dr. Berne. Why I’m originally from Virginia, actually, I came to Hawaii in 2002, just for a visit. And then when I got here, it felt more like home than any place I’ve ever been. So I just decided to stay. And I started over with a few $100 in my suitcases, and just took it from there. And month to month, I started going around to garage sales and picking stuff up and reselling it on eBay to make a living. And that’s after two years of doing that, that’s how it sort of became the bookstore. I never actually planned to open a bookstore, it just sort of happened. So there was a landlord couple in the town upon a paper they who I got to meet when I moved to the west side of kawaii and they, after talking with them for a little while they to make the story short, they actually offered me a space free per month to start a business.
And at the time, I didn’t have any background and books or retail or business. So I it just seemed like a good way to get the eBay, eBay product out of the house. And I figured it customers would walk into the shop maybe I might sell more the eBay product. But it seemed obvious once I removed all the stuff into the shop that it seemed like a bookstore and Curiosity Shop because I had about 3000 use books and a variety of Watson ends.
And that’s basically how it got started. And I I also didn’t know what to call it either because I didn’t want it to have a name that would be kind of typical, like paradise books or something boring like kawaii bookstore. I thought okay, what can we call it? So I put it out to the community to ask them, What would you like the store to be called. And eventually somebody came back with a name talk story. And it just fit it just felt right. And talk story is a local colloquialism, which means to chat or to shoot the breeze or to share his story. And that’s how talk story bookstore began back in 2004.
03:10
Yeah, I love to hear those stories, you know, has a because you’re, you’re an entrepreneur, you know, in some ways, and I know the magic of kawaii sometimes you go to a place and you never think you’re gonna stay there. And then all of a sudden, you become a pillar of the community. So what has been some of your most interesting, you know, authors and books that have come through your bookstore?
03:39
Well, every Friday night, there’s a hunt. There’s the 100 Pip, a Friday night festival in Artwalk. And that’s been going on for about 20 plus years. So when I started the store in 2004, of course, naturally, we decided to participate in doing Friday nights. So we had an open invitation for authors to come and do book signings on Friday nights. So we do actually get a fair number of local authors who would come in and have their books, be out front of the shop, do a signing, get the talk story with the customers. And we’ve had a wide variety of people from not only across the islands, but also across the state and across the country.
And also, even from other countries doing book signings as well. I mean, there’s more way more known authors, I would say, We’re nationally known authors who come and done book signings, like, let’s see Chelsea came, there was Wanda Brunstetter, and then there was a few other people been nationally recognized. So there’s a variety of people and the thing is, is we have an open policy so whatever your book is about or like Sure, go ahead do it. You know, We don’t really censor what is going to be presented. And we leave that up to the customer to make up their own mind. So it’s kind of fun for people to see who might show up on a Friday night.
05:12
You so this, this art event that you have every week? Do you have a, you know, kind of a regular following of people that they come every week and, you know, meet the authors, you know, how does that work?
05:29
So the town’s event draws hundreds of people on its own. So our business is predominantly tourism, we probably about 80 to 90%. Tourism on Friday night is a huge drop, but it brings both locals and residents I would say probably at about a 6040 ratio. The cool thing about that is for residents, they get to come across new authors. But I wouldn’t say we have like a regular following those people who follow her on Instagram, and we post about which authors is going to be there, it’s of interest to them, they show up. But for the visitors, it’s like always unexpected. It’s I have no idea who’s going to be there. And they’re even surprised there’s an author out there in the first place. So it’s kind of this interesting synchronicity and people meeting meeting authors that they didn’t know they were interested in this subject, or sometimes they discovered, well, I was just thinking about this, and you happen to have a book about this. This is amazing. This actually happens a lot in the shop.
06:27
That’s great. So what would you say? Do you have a specialty of? You know, is it mostly fiction, nonfiction? You know, what? What do you specialize in?
06:38
Our focus is in being as diverse as possible, we try to have something for everyone, we try to carry every subject we possibly can. Sometimes the stranger the better. We generally, like I said, we don’t censor what’s in there, we just leave it up to the customers to decide what’s interesting to them. Because the truth is, if we only carried books that I liked, or I agreed with, wouldn’t have that many books to sell.
07:04
So true, yes. And what what have been your most influential books that you’ve read maybe one or two, that personally have really affected you?
07:21
Yeah, it’s interesting. There’s, there’s actually quite a few I’ve read that I really enjoyed. But I’d say, in thinking of the books that have made the biggest impact on me, that actually changed my life. One of them, believe it or not, is a book called Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. And this book is gives just such simple, no nonsense advice about how to help not only pay down your own debts, but also to build savings. And I was at one point $75,000 in debt. And because of the principles that he put in this book, I actually have no debt now. And I have a sizable savings. That was all accomplished within about five years.
And the cool thing about this is, it’s not like you have to go focus on money all the time. It’s because I don’t like that I just would rather live our lives and do what we do. And it’s just these little automatic things that you have set in place. And once you’re set in place, you just kind of set it and forget it and does its own thing. And so like I gave this book to a young man who graduated high school, about 10 years ago, and now he actually owns two homes.
Well, I mean, it’s crazy how simple this works. And it’s like, I wish every kid in high school could have been given this as a graduation gift, because they think it would have changed the economic situation as a whole. But yeah, simple advice to it’s not like crazy stuff. It’s just easy. Yeah, I was done. I didn’t, I thought I wouldn’t be in debt forever. But you know, it’s interesting.
09:00
It’s amazing how those books you know, kind of come in. It’s, you know, I’ve read a few of those myself. And you know, some of it is just so simple. And these authors just come up with such great ideas. And so they have a venue to come to you, which is really, really cool. So what do you do outside of the book, business? What are some of your hobbies? In quite?
09:30
Well, I don’t get out and hike as much as we would like to. I mean, it’s like kind of funny. You know, the beach is only about 15 minutes away. And since we’ve been down a lot of people think, Oh, if I moved to Hawaii, I’ll be in the beach all the time. Well, I maybe it feels like a surfer. It’s like your passion and hobby. But you know, as with all of us, life just kind of keeps going on but generally My own personal hobbies is I actually enjoy writing. I’ve been working on a multi part novel series for the last 20 years, starting to approach agents with it. And then on top of that on my other helping my wife with her graphic design business that’s turned into her full time business, stickers and artwork that she does is wholesale merchandise across the island. So that’s, that’s cool, elaborating and creating with her.
10:36
So do you use much social media in your business?
10:43
Um, not a lot. I mean, I would say most of our interaction with customers comes from people just walking in. And I’d say walk in customers is about 95% of our business. We do have social media presence, like Instagram. And generally my wife Uniko is the one who is more savvy with all that. So she’ll take photos and videos and do posts, stories and things like that. And that seems to be where we get most of our attraction for local residents who are following us to see what’s the news things we’ve got in number who’s going to be stopping by to do a signing, it’s, it’s kind of interesting, I just don’t have the time for it. Most of the time. I’m just so busy. There’s so many things to do at the bookstore. I always tell people, if you want to read for a living don’t have a bookstore.
11:33
I actually have some friends that don’t the bookstore in Humboldt County in California for many years. And they sold it and they retired here to New Mexico and they said the same thing. It was just so you know, involving to try to run a bookstore and manage employees and everything like that. So well, I I’m really looking forward to visiting you and sharing my information. Again, I will be there this Friday from five to 7pm. And I look forward to meeting you in person and thank you for your time to come on the podcast and I’ll definitely send you a copy of it. And, you know, thank you for for hosting me and and doing what you’re doing.
12:22
No problem. It’s our honor to have you and we’ll look forward to seeing you on Friday.
Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.
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