Today we’d like to introduce you to Caitlin O’neil
Hi Caitlin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
We (Caitlin and Lauren) met in a romance book club here in the Twin Cities back in 2019. We fairly quickly realized that we have near polar opposite taste in books, which made the discussions way more fun.
The concept of starting a romance bookstore got started in Fall 2022, after Lauren had made a “joke” about starting one. And at our book club the next month, she made the same joke…which at that point started to seem like not so much of a joke anymore. Caitlin ended up reaching out to ask about how serious this idea was, and, if it was even a little bit serious, how she could help make it happen. We ended up meeting for coffee to discuss the idea, our values, our visions, and our goals. We’d planned to meet for 30 minutes, but we ended up chatting for three hours.
From there, we started chatting with people in the book industry around the Cities and we got involved in our regional trade association to learn more about the industry. Lauren has previous experience as a co-owner of a business, and Caitlin came to this from the publishing industry, with experience as a book publicist. But even with that strong base to build from, there were still quite a few particularities of the bookselling business that we learned on the ground. We remain eternally grateful to the other independent bookstores in the Twin Cities who helped answer our questions, who connected us with other booksellers, and who hosted us for events before we had our brick-and-mortar location.
We officially kicked things off on Bookstore Romance Day in August 2023, with an author event co-hosted with Big Hill Books. From there, we started a series of pop-ups in collaboration with a number of local independent Twin Cities business, which culminated with us opening a temporary holiday storefront in November and December. This temporary storefront ended up being so successful (and fun) that we signed a long-term lease for the same space, and then closed for the first part of this year to renovate and essentially transition from our temporary space to the permanent space we’d always envisioned.
We celebrated our grand reopening on April 13, with guest signing authors Denise Williams and Laura Moher. Over 400 people attended, and we had a line around the block for seven hours—and still had books left after the end of the day!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There were periods of uncertainty, of course. Searching for a brick and mortar location was a tricky process, as it is for a lot of people, and there were some times when we wondered if we would ever find the right spot.
There were some speed bumps along the way, sure—delayed shipments, hunting down brackets to match a set that we inherited with some vintage fixtures—but we’ve learned to pivot on a dime to be able to keep moving forward. Mostly we’ve been blown away by the enthusiasm of readers at every step of the way, whether they’re local to the Twin Cities or traveling in to visit us.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We are an independent bookstore that specializes in romance novels across subgenres. That, in and of itself, is what sets us apart from many other bookstores, and we’re proud to stock widely across the genre, including self-published authors alongside traditionally published authors.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
From a business perspective, the pandemic is continuing to force a readiness to adapt. To be clear, we didn’t weather the most intense days of the pandemic as a business ourselves, since we started up in 2023. But seeing the experience of retailers during the height of pandemic, and the important role that e-commerce played in staying afloat during 2020 and 2021, it was important to us to be able to offer online shopping options as soon as we had the bandwidth for it. Our online site is now up and running, with the opportunity to buy books directly from our shelves, or to special order titles through us.
From a personal perspective, the pandemic seems to have made people hungry for in-person connection again. The opportunity to come together around shared interests, to swap book recs, to meet authors in person and be part of a community, whatever that may look like. For us, that’s books.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tropesandtrifles.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tropesandtrifles/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553105936941
