The head and heart of Roxanne Coady, owner of R.J. Julia Booksellers

Photo Credit: Tricia Bohan Photography

Thank God you’re not going anywhere…

At this, Roxanne Coady’s eyes flair to life. “Unless we lose more business,” says the 60 year-old owner of R.J. Julia, Madison’s famed independent bookseller. It’s a misconception that she has heard before (and will no doubt hear again), and she rebuts it with both candor and wisdom. “Little stores like ours could very easily go out of business if people decide that they can just shift ten percent of their dollars to the web or out of town retailers. And then we’d be gone. And they’d say, ‘Oh, my God! I always thought they were okay.’ Well, we’re not...”

And by they she means book-buyers. “How they choose to spend their money has a lot of power.” A C.P.A. for the first twenty years of her career and a former partner and national tax director of BDO Seidman in New York, Coady well understands the money side of business. But she also realizes the critical nature of maintaining her customer base. And while her words may sound foreboding, she is merely illuminating a truth that is too often taken for granted.

“But I think if we can have the support of the community…we’ll be okay.”

***

At the age of forty, Roxanne Coady had the proverbial mid-life crisis. “At a certain point…I felt like I ought to spend the second half of my work life doing something where I thought I made a difference,” she explains. So she walked away from her prestigious position as national tax director—the first woman to hold that title—and the generous annual salary that came with it. “The two things I’ve always cared about are poor women and children and reading,” she reflects. “And then I couldn’t decide between a publishing company and a bookstore. But I realized a publishing company was a way to lose even more money.”

Shortly after leaving the hustle and bustle of the city behind for the relative tranquility of Connecticut with her husband, Coady found out that she was pregnant. “People think that I stayed in Connecticut since I had a child, but…I think I would have been more interested in accumulating money had I known that I would have had a child,” she says of the irony. “Edward and the store are the same age,” she adds with a laugh.

R.J. Julia opened its doors in April of 1990, just two months before the birth of her son. And while the community immediately embraced the store, its initial financial losses made Coady realize that she needed to reevaluate her philosophies. “That’s about letting your passion overtake your sense of business,” she explains. “When I did what I did before, that was all about business. When I opened the bookstore, I was all about passion…the trick is to end up with something where you combine head and heart.”

The former accountant in Roxanne Coady reemerged, and she made a vow to run her business like a business. R.J. Julia quickly established itself as a destination, and Coady and company were honored by Publishers Weekly as their Bookseller of the Year in 1995. Much of their success has been attributed to an incredibly robust and eclectic schedule of events, including frequent author signings. From national bestsellers (Anne Rice, Tess Gerritsen) to local treasures (Roberta Isleib, Karen E. Olson) to A-list celebrities (Barbara Walters, Julianne Moore), R.J. Julia has played host to hundreds, if not thousands, of scribes, bringing writer and reader face-to-face.

“It’s a very important part of R.J. Julia to have these authors come through the store,” she agrees. “And I talk to a lot of writers and they benefit enormously from the close and personal contact with the reader.” As for the variety and caliber of talent, she adds, “We like the combination. I don’t want all big names.” Then she thinks for a moment. “I certainly wouldn’t want all small names because it wouldn’t economically make sense.”

Regardless of the byline on the book, or the price, for that matter, you won’t find Coady opting for its cheaper downloadable version (for devices such as the Kindle) any time soon. “Which is not to say that I don’t think it’s going to take off,” she admits of the technology. “I get the efficiency of it…but it doesn’t do it for me.” What does do it for her is the feel of the actual book in her hands, the comfort of knowing that it has a place where it can easily be found for future reference. “When I think of all the books I have at home, they feel almost like a scrapbook to me of all my experiences and all my learning. And I love that.”

What she also loves is the experience of reading a good book. Just what makes a book good, however, is not easy to define, though Coady does say that a good indicator is when someone is “utterly engaged and engrossed” with what they’re reading. “I think books do different things at different times,” she continues, “I think, depending on what you want at the moment, that’s what it does for you.” As for why people read, she sees two equally strong motivations: to be entertained and to learn.

Particularly appealing to her is how a book allows its reader to live in another’s shoes. “You gain compassion…by knowing what it’s really like to be bipolar, to get a divorce, to have a child that’s disabled, to lose everything you own, to get rich, to live in a third world country.”

***

One thing that is apparent is that Roxanne Coady is clearly not lacking in head or heart.

And she is more than happy to reflect on the lessons she has learned after nineteen years in the business: “If you can be lucky enough to do something that you’re passionate about and be business-like about it to make it profitable, that’s the homerun. I have not quite mastered that. I continue to have the business be tilted to heart. It’s not a very economically sound model running this bookstore…but I’ve now resolved that it’s good enough for me to have the pleasure of doing what I care so much about.”

And that’s to the benefit of us all…

***

Not long ago, in 2006, Roxanne Coady found her own name featured prominently on the front of a book. Edited with Joy Johannessen, The Book That Changed My Life boasts seventy-one submissions from remarkable authors celebrating the books that matter most to them. All were distinguished guests of R.J. Julia. Also that year, she and a small group of women founded the Read to Grow Foundation, which provides numerous books and information on literacy to newborns and their families every year. Fittingly, all proceeds from The Book That Changed My Life benefit that endeavor.