In September of 2005, Politics & Prose Bookstore was celebrating its twenty-first anniversary. We have had much good fortune, but we have also worked hard, have never taken anything for granted, and have constantly taken on new challenges.**
We started the bookstore with $100,000 and 1400 square feet of sales space. Both would be difficult if not impossible fifteen years later. We opened with Crown Bookstores all around us, so we always knew how to navigate in the murky waters of discounting. In fact, we counted it as a blessing that we didn't have to stock many of the bestsellers. We didn't try to compete with Crown. We could be selective, a quality that our customers value. We grew slowly, but much of the growth occurred before large chain stores saturated the Washington area. In 1992 we added a coffeehouse before other bookstores did (except the venerable Kramerbooks and Afterwords).
For more information, visit: http://www.politics-prose.com/