Even if only five people come, it’s cozy.” Some readings have been held in churches, including St. People would say, ‘I tried to go to your reading, but I couldn’t find a parking space.’” The parking problem has been solved by holding most author events at Nancy’s Creamery in the Bearsville Center. “We thought of the readings as bringing people into the store,” said Conrad, “but it’s hard to park here on the weekends. Meanwhile, readings have flourished at other sites in town. “My rep was interested,” Conrad said, “since Abigail’s name has cachet.” That problem was solved with the signing up of Publishers Group West, which represents about 50 small publishers and is linked to bookstores around the U.S. However, Conrad was wondering how he was going to tell every bookstore in America to buy the book and then ship it to them. “We know our customers, we know what sells, and we can launch a book. They have so little staff for a lot of books, and you can get lost in the shuffle.” The Big Five, with their emphasis on hoping for the next bestseller, don’t necessarily have a finger on the pulse of the local market, the way a bookstore does. As she worked on her latest memoir, explained Conrad, “She didn’t want to be one of hundreds of authors at a big house. Whenever it’s been hard to obtain copies of highly requested books, the proprietors’ thoughts have gone toward taking on a publishing role.Ĭonrad is friends with Abigail Thomas, whose work has been produced by such big houses as Houghton Mifflin and Scribner. Guidebooks and accounts of local history are also perennial sellers. Customers buy from one to five copies a week of Small Town Talk, a book about the Woodstock music scene of the 1950s and 60s.

The Golden Notebook’s owners, Jackie Kellachan and James Conrad, started discussing the idea of stepping into the publishing world several years ago, when they were concerned that some of their bestsellers might go out of print. Publication is scheduled for January of 2023. Publishers Group West has signed on to handle promotion and distribution of the book to stores nationally and internationally. The first volume by Golden Notebook Press will be Still Life at 80: The Next Interesting Thing, a new memoir by acclaimed local author Abigail Thomas. More recently, McNally Jackson Books in Manhattan has published several literary novels, and now the Golden Notebook of Woodstock is joining the ranks of bookstore-publishers.

In the 1950s, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore branched out into publishing ground-breaking books such as Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems. Jacqueline Kellachan, James Conrad anf Abigail Thomas.

The golden notebook