A Charlotte book shop pivots to subscription service
Shelves Bookstore, a Charlotte pop-up shop, pivoted to a subscription model during the pandemic
The following article appeared in the Feb. 21, 2025, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.
Small business spotlight: A Charlotte pop-up book shop that pivoted to subscriptions during the pandemic
Breaking into bookselling is tough, especially after the pandemic forced independent stores online in order to compete with big-box stores like Barnes & Noble and Amazon. To stand out, bookstores must find creative ways to connect with customers, says Abbigail Glen, owner of Charlotte-based Shelves Bookstore. That challenge led Glen to launch a book subscription service four years ago.
In 2019, Glen, a Philadelphia native who moved to Charlotte in 2016, opened Shelves Bookstore as a mobile pop-up shop, partnering with local breweries and coffee shops in Charlotte. It became her full-time job.
But when the pandemic began less than a year later, she was forced to move online.
“The pandemic exposed the gap in bookselling,” Glen, 36, said. While big-box booksellers already had established online stores, independently owned bookstores and pop-ups like Shelves had to quickly pivot in order to stay afloat in the pandemic.
Shelves started gaining momentum in 2020, following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the Black Lives Matter protests across the country, she said.
“People were just honestly, with the civil unrest, were just looking for Black-owned businesses to support,” she said. “If you had a website where they thought they could order something from you, they did. And so that really kind of opened the door for that.”
Coming out of 2020, Glen was encouraged by the growth and profits she made and wanted to continue the momentum. In February 2021, Glen launched Reading Is A Lifestyle (RIAL), her personalized book subscription service.
Shelves owner Abbigail Glen is working to sell subscriptions to her monthly book service, called Reading Is A Lifestyle. (Photo courtesy of Abbigail Glen)
Each month, Glen picks a few books for each subscription, which is mailed to subscribers’ homes. Most are new releases that get lost among popular titles from big publishers. A subscription also gets members into Shelves’s monthly virtual hangout sessions, in which Glen invites an author of one of the selected books to talk about their book and answer questions from the readers.
Subscriptions are $25 a month (plus the cost of shipping). Glen has 25 subscribers, some of whom live outside of North Carolina.
Last year, Glen sold 3,000 books through her online shop. As she continues to grow her business, she said one of her priorities is to get readers in the door through subscriptions and introduce them to a world of books they may not have known about otherwise.
“We’ve got something for you,” Glen said, “as long as you're open to somebody handling the hard work of having to decide what book you should get and just also wanting to connect you with some incredibly amazing authors.” —Lindsey Banks
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