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Miele Is Jumping On Indie Trend; Bookseller Says Consumers Are Hankering For Personal Touch
By Tina Traster
Anything “indie” – from bookstores to films to coffee shops – calls for entrepreneurial grit, creativity, and a dash of good luck.
Competing at the local independent level against powerhouses like Amazon or Starbucks is a challenge, given their depth of resources and reach. However, there’s evidence that consumers are yearning to return to a more personalized environment for drinking coffee and browsing bookshelves.
More than 200 new independent bookstores opened in 2023, according to AP News. This expansion includes brick-and-mortar stores, pop-ups, online sites, and mobile stores.
Donna Miele, along with her son Armand, are rolling the dice with The Sparkle Bookstore, set to open at 642 Main Street in Sparkill in mid-July. Miele, an editor and writer, along with her son, have leased the 750-square-feet building for one year, which over the past decade has been occupied by a yoga studio, then later a photography workshop and gallery.
Independent bookstores often serve as community hubs, a space for connection, events, and local engagement – giving them an advantage over the more generic environment of the big box bookstores. A case in point is Richard Fulco’s Big Red Books on Main Street, which opened in the Village of Nyack in July 2023. Its robust programming and meticulous curation has brought a much-needed asset to Rockland County as a whole, which is largely a bibliophile’s desert, excepting libraries. The small bookstore endures because it speaks to something primal and good and necessary in a world that often feels big and overwhelming and impersonal.
That said, booksellers are tasked with cultivating relationships and generating loyalty because they are typically undermined by online sellers like Amazon, and other big box giants that benefit from deeper wholesale discounts. They must concentrate on alternative revenue streams like cards or calendars or food and beverage to keep their stores afloat.
Miele’s path to opening a bookstore is a common one: she loves books.
“From the time my mother and aunt taught me to read, I’ve loved books,” said Miele. “Both my parents were working; I was alone a lot. Reading was a way to keep myself busy.”
Armand Miele, the bookseller’s father, was a real estate developer, a political figure, and publisher of The Rockland County Times from 1988 until his death in 2013. His family still owns the building at 119 Main Street in Nanuet, where the community weekly is published. In 2010, Miele wrote a memoir, “Born Minus: From Shoeshine Boy to News Publisher, An Italian-American Journey,” which mused on his role as a publisher and his staunch support for an independent press.
At college, Donna Miele studied American Civilization and later law, but said, “I was always a writer.”
She said her father became a publisher when she was 30 years old.
“He used to ask for my help because he didn’t have a lot of practice.” Miele initially worked as a lawyer, then parttime at the newspaper, and later ran a co-working space in the building the company owns, which closed down after COVID.
Now, she’s throwing everything at her true passion.
“I’ve been speaking about this, saving up, for a long time,” she said, adding she’s approaching retirement age and is seeking to fulfill a dream. “But when I learned about the space in Sparkill, I had to take it. It’s a perfect space, perfect location, wonderful neighbors, and so we got started sooner than planned.”
The hamlet of Sparkill, once thought of as a sleepy place – or not given much thought at all – has over the past two years become a magnet for creative food and beverage concepts, building on pioneers who started the wave more than a decade ago. There’s been a steady momentum of restaurant openings that has given the historic hamlet “it” status.
Miele said she searched for commercial openings in Pearl River, Nyack and Suffern, but added this location is right near the post office and a large parking lot.
In a page ripped out of what could have been a sequel to “You’ve Got Mail,” the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan romcom that used the David and Goliath battle of the bookstores as its construct, Miele furnished most of the shelving, tables and displays from free discards from the recently shuttered Shakespeare & Company in Manhattan. Almost exactly a year after debuting at 2736 Broadway near 105th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Shakespeare & Co. shut down last April, with owner Dane Neller, one of the shop’s owners, saying, “Love the neighborhood, love the customers. We just weren’t able to get to the sales level we needed to make the store sustainable.”
Miele got word of the impending closure on Bookseller Discord, a social media platform. She also wrote to Rockland County libraries to help her jumpstart her enterprise, and caught a break with the West Nyack Library, which was giving away book carts.
“Local bookstores are community hubs and well-loved,” said Miele. “They host reading events and all kinds of community groups.”
Miele believes there’s a recent trend toward “anti-billionaire sentiment,” motivating consumers to uplift indies, including bookstores.
“Local bookstores are a giving back to the community, and the community respond in kind. People want to feel like their dollars are going toward the betterment of the community.”
The bookseller said she’s never run a retail business but feels confident and excited about her venture. She plans to add a small café with prepared foods to the operation.
On June 25, the bookstore will host “Read 25 Day,” at 5 pm, which is a national event co-curated by Bookshop.org and Gretchen Rubin, author of “The Happiness Project”. The event will include a 25-minute reading session, followed by a book discussion.
On July 19, from 1 to 4 pm, The Sparkle will host local authors for a meet-and- greet in the cafe area. The lineup includes poet laureate of Rockland Juan Pablo Mobili (Contraband), memoirist Lorraine Ash (Life Touches Life), poet Rebecca Watkins (Field Guide to Forgiveness), and historical novelist Suzanne Uttaro Samuels (Seeds of the Pomegranate). Books will be available for purchase.
Also, in 2027, Miele’s memoir on denial, chronic illness, and reconciliation, will be published by Sibylline Press in 2027.
