Practically two years in the past, Joni McCoy wrote her first ebook.

Practically two months in the past, she opened a bookstore.

Younger Bookworms, her Colorado Springs retailer that solely sells youngsters’s books from self-published authors, is filled with rainbow decorations and vivid blue chairs and colourful covers of books.

However don’t decide the shop’s story on the look. It started with tragedy in October 2019, when McCoy’s mom died after a six-year battle with Alzheimer’s. McCoy, who retired early to look after her mother, discovered herself needing one thing to do.

She began writing youngsters’s books, impressed by the sort McCoy learn aloud close to the top of her mom’s life.

“I began out simply to fill the void with Mother,” she stated. “As quickly as I wrote one, I used to be addicted.”

Writing was new for McCoy, who beforehand labored for 20 years as an accountant and owned a cupcake store.

It hasn’t gotten previous, because the 63-year-old writer has since self-published greater than 30 books and found out distinctive methods to promote them past begging bookstores or itemizing titles on Amazon.

In 2020, she arrange a sales space together with her books at space farmers markets and occasions.

“No one goes to promote your ebook such as you do,” McCoy stated.

Her sales space was a success and expanded to incorporate works by different self-published authors. She offered greater than 2,500 books in a couple of months, which sparked one other concept.

“We offered so many books that I noticed we would have liked a storefront,” she stated. “I knew I wanted to create an area that households might come to and revel in all of the books.”

That area opened in March within the Woodmen Plaza purchasing heart.

With a deal with self-published youngsters’s books, Younger Bookworms is probably going certainly one of a sort.

“I feel the world is lacking out on so many unimaginable self-published books,” McCoy stated. “I need to change that.

In recent times, self-published books have discovered extra of a house within the aisles of conventional bookstores. Barnes & Noble has a self-publishing outfit that helps authors get their work featured on the corporate’s web site and, probably, in shops.

Tattered Cowl Ebook Retailer, which is the state’s largest impartial bookstore and has a Colorado Springs location on the best way, has a program for self-published authors round Colorado. Native shops comparable to Poor Richard’s carry self-published books.

The whole Younger Bookworms shines a lightweight on this class. And McCoy designed the format with that in thoughts.

She calls it a “No Backbone” bookstore, which means guests ought to by no means see the facet of a ebook.

With a provide of greater than 300 books, representing about 150 authors, covers of 300 books are on show.

“I don’t know if there’s such a factor as a ‘No Backbone’ coverage,” she stated. “I needed each ebook to have the identical probability of promoting.”

The shop goes past simply displaying books. McCoy plans to host writer visits, ebook golf equipment, day by day storytime and courses for youths who need to self-publish. She additionally sells book-themed gadgets comparable to toys, stuffed animals, T-shirts, hats, bookmarks and puzzles.

A number of gadgets are impressed by certainly one of McCoy’s current books, referred to as “Toots The Fireplace Farting Dragon.” There’s a cookbook and a stuffed animal resembling the dragon.

Sure, McCoy remains to be writing. And nonetheless thinks of her goal reader: her mother.

“Each ebook I give you, I attempt to do one thing that’s going to make my mother giggle,” she stated.

McCoy thinks the shop would make her mother smile, too.

“She feels so current on this retailer,” she stated. “I feel she would’ve been right here every single day.”

Another person is there every single day: McCoy’s father, William. At 92, he has his personal workplace at Younger Bookworms. And he simply completed writing his first ebook.

Search for it on cabinets there quickly, McCoy stated.