When Annette Stillson finally caught a ride from her Bonita Springs home to her used bookstore on Fort Myers Beach, a few days after Hurricane Ian flooded it Sept. 28, 2022, she realized she had lost about 5,000 books.
More than two years have passed. And from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Jan. 18, Stillson finally will be celebrating the grand reopening of the new-look Annette’s Beach Book Nook. The store is still at Santini Marina Plaza, 7205 Estero Blvd., on the southern end of Fort Myers Beach. But she has a different location within the shopping center, toward the back between The Islander gift shop and Leani’s Casual and Swimwear.
About 24 local authors will be on hand, selling their books inside and outside of Stillson’s store. Stillson said she’s letting the authors keep all the profits this time, instead of the typical 60%-40% split, as a thank you for helping her to get back up and running again.
Between Hurricane Ian’s departure and now, some 7,000 donated books arrived to either Stillson’s home or her store.
One of them included a vintage, 1936, first-edition copy of Gone with the Wind. She is selling it for $350.
Stillson’s inventory grew larger than ever. The business model is simple. She sells most used hardbacks for $5 and paperbacks at 50% off listed price. Her store is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.
Before she crowdsourced her inventory, Stillson began emptying her own bookshelves to restock.
“I feel blessed,” Stillson said. “Very much so. I didn’t expect it. When I started, I actually took my personal books off my shelf, and boxed them up, because I had a lot of collections.
“Needless to say, some of those are back in my home.”
The book donations have come in from all over the country.
“Everybody just has been donating the inventory,” she said. “Dropping them off at my house. Sending them in the mail. I ended up with more books than I started with.”
Stillson credited the owner of the plaza with helping her get started. Yariv Shaked’s company purchased the plaza less than a year before Hurricane Ian. He built the bookcases inside Stillson’s store.
“Holding onto it and doing the amount of work he did to put it back — it was a struggle I’m sure,” Stillson said. “And I can only be thankful for him. I don’t know where I’d be without him.”
Shaked said having a bookstore up and running can only be good for the shopping center’s standing.
“It is important,” Shaked said. “First of all, I have a daughter who loves books. She’s 17 years old. There’s not many bookstores in Southwest Florida, right? It’s hard to find a bookstore. And people love the bookstore.
“You can find something that you can’t find anywhere.”
