Once upon a time, Carrie Devault opened a bookstore out of her basement.
Starting with 12,000 books, she sold novels, children’s classics and teen fiction to those who shared her love of the written word. A few years later, as her collection of books multiplied, Devault moved from her basement to a three-warehouse storage unit off West Valley Highway in Kent to house the now 500,000 books in her possession.
Unfortunately for Devault, her fairytale-like dream of running a bookstore does not have a happy ending.
Devault’s bookstore, Once Sold Tales, is closing Friday due to economic pressure.
As of now, she believes the fate of bookstores looks grim.
“We always knew this was going to be a problem,” she said, referring to the increase in digital book sales and the popularity of e-reader technology. “Books in general are just taking a bad hit, (and) it’s made my books worthless.”
Walking through the colossal shelves of Once Sold Tales, a person could get lost amongst the stacks. That’s why Devault greets every customer at the door with what she calls a treasure map, a layout of the three units, to help them find those hidden treasures out of the half million books on the shelves, boxes and tables.
“I’ve had so many families say that it’s been changing their lives and helping their kids to read,” she said. “We know we’re making a difference.”
With the community always in mind, Devault would travel from library to library throughout Washington, even crossing state lines into Oregon at times, to collect unwanted books, saving them from just being throw away or recycled. She also gave away five books a month to any child who walked through her door, seeing upwards of 100 kids a month to get free books. Devault believed that sharing those timeless tales was more important than turning a profit.
“The south end really needed a bookstore down here, but I can’t afford it anymore,” she said.
To help all the books find good homes, she hosted a BYOB – bring your own bag – week where all customers can bring any sized bag, fill it to the brim and pay only $10. She’s also donating a good amount to local school PTAs, libraries, and other places wiling to take them.
Devault believes that the closing of her store and others like it is a “sign of the times” where larger companies drive down costs so much, they put smaller stores out of business. It not only bothers her what the industry is doing to book sales, but also “how cheap information is these days.”
“I think we’re losing something very valuable,” she said.
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