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Hill Country Bookstore • Georgetown

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By Beth Wade Friday, 07 December 2007

Bookstore promotes local authors, reading

While visiting college friends in Georgetown, Margarite Holt and her husband noticed a storefront on the square that was empty and immediately took an interest.

“We knew we wanted to live here and retire here, but we both still had active careers in New York,” Holt said. “So, I went to the American Book Sellers Association and went to a two-week school there. They told me how to set up a store, got me in touch with the wholesalers and everything. I came back and opened up the store. It has been a learning experience ever since.”

In 1995, Hill Country Bookstore opened its doors. Her first five years in business, Holt ran the operation from New York with the help of a store manager. It was after the stress of Y2K that she retired from her work at a data processing firm and moved to Georgetown full time, she said. The inspiration to run a bookstore came from Holt’s love of reading.

“If you have a good experience reading, you can always change the topic,” Holt said. “First you have to learn reading is fun.”

Holt’s best-selling sections are children’s books, which she tries to keep stocked with award-winning authors, and Texana, a selection of books all about Texas.

“All of our employees here are great readers. They love to read, they enjoy books, they enjoy good stories,” she said. “We are always sharing what we’ve read. We may not have the book. We may have to order it because we don’t carry as big a stock as Barnes and Noble, but we will be able to tell you about it or recommend something similar.”

The bookstore offers a selection of local authors and best sellers. However, Holt’s best-sellers list can be different from the best-sellers list at larger book chains, she said.

“As a small independent bookstore, I carry things on my shelves that you won’t see everywhere else. I use a reference called Book Sense. It is a survey of thousands of small independent book sellers across the U.S.A., and they put together their own recommendations,” Holt said. “I like it because I want them to be exposing our readers to a slightly different set of information than what is being dictated by the big boys.”

When taking classes at the ABSA, Holt was told there were eight things to look for in a good bookstore location. Georgetown had six of the eight, including an expanding population, a good library and a university, she said.

“I did look at Salado originally because Salado had a better reputation than Georgetown, as far as a marketing point of view,” Holt said. “But, Georgetown had this beautiful downtown, beautiful setting, so I picked Georgetown, and I’m happy I did. It’s worked out really well.”