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In the winter of 2023, Kimberly Hill found herself curled up on the couch with a good book, much like many of us during the cold months. As she read, she pondered how much effort it took to drive to Barnes & Noble for her books and how nice it would be if Hollister had its own bookstore.
After a series of highly successful pop-up events under the “Hill’s Bookstore” name, and bolstered by the support of her husband, Adam, she achieved that dream by launching a permanent storefront in the downtown area on Feb.15 last year.
“It’s quite a venture opening a bookstore,” she said. “It wasn’t something that you could just Google on the internet.”
After learning the ins and outs of connecting with book distributors and getting a lot of advice from a group of bookseller mentors, Kimberly was ready to order her stock and test the waters at her first two-day pop-up, held at Ohana Shave Ice, on Feb. 24, 2024.
“I found a lot of titles on TikTok and Instagram,” she said. “Things that seemed really popular. I spent a lot of time at Barnes & Noble, seeing which books were featured. And I sent out a survey on Facebook to ask people what they would be interested in reading.”
It was a greater success than either of the Hills would have suspected. Kimberly advertised the event on Facebook and, as she set up, people were lining up to buy. She brought 120 books as her initial inventory and sold almost all of them.
“I was the farthest thing from confident,” Adam said. “We were thinking there’s no way that all those people are here for us. It sounds silly now, but I didn’t know if the community would support a bookstore.”
The pop-ups continued every other week or so, at locations like Vertigo or Calivera Coffee and then to regular appearances at the Hollister Downtown Association’s Farmers Market—“anywhere that felt like there would be the audience,” Kimberly said. But her eye was always on her own brick-and-mortar location.
“Of course, we had lots of support,” she said. “We did a crowdfunding campaign with some good success. We’d set a goal from that first pop-up to have a place within a year. But we did not want to rush it. Adam was very much ‘We need to take our time on this.’”
Adam describes himself as “the brakes in the operation,” and Kimberley as “the gas pedal.”
“She was so confident, he said. “She was 100% certain this community wanted a bookstore. I was like, ‘Okay, show me the numbers. Let’s slow down. Let’s prove that we can do this.’”
On a random drive together down San Benito Street in October 2024, Kimberly spotted a “For Lease” sign and, after screaming at Adam to stop the car, ran to get the phone number and then made some phone calls. Kimberly cashed in her federal retirement and they signed the lease that November.
“We had a huge group of people who wanted to see this go,” she said. “I’d like to call out the Hollister Moms, a group around town who meet up. They all showed up and helped get the paint on the walls and the shelves assembled. That was a huge help for us.”
After delays in the permitting process, they got the go-ahead to open.
“My daughter and I took all the paper off the windows,” Kimberly said. “Adam was out riding his bike and had to turn around and come back. Within two hours, the store was packed, and that was just an amazing, amazing feeling.”
Customer Rachel Maheu said she had been counting down the days until the opening and has been very happy to see how the store has flourished.
“I know my constantly buying tons of books is probably helping,” she said. “They always get the newest things in stock, and they have been super welcoming. I wish them nothing but success.
A week later, they held their grand opening to similar results, and the transition from pop-up to store, with a shift in business philosophy, was complete.
“With pop-ups,” Kimberley said, “your focus is on what you have right now. I had to learn to look into the future and think about not just doing sales every other week. We’re now doing it every day, and how can we appease people every day?”
One of the ways they chose to keep the public engaged was to become involved in larger community events, such as promoting a recent appearance by former astronaut Jose Hernández at the Veterans Memorial Building and a talk by literary renaissance man Dave Eggers.
“At first,” Adam said, “we were just a retail store doing transactions. But then we started opening up to other ideas, like bringing in authors, doing book clubs and having events for kids. And I really think this separates us from the big bookstore chains and builds the community.”
The ever-present bookstore chains loom in the background, complicating the store’s survival. Kimberly said that shortly after Hill’s opened, Amazon countered by dropping book prices for purchasers in the 95023 area.
“That was a slap in the face,” she said. “But once we opened, we had a lot of people come in and say, ‘I’m done with Amazon. I don’t want to buy from them anymore.” We want to let people know that we’re serious about book selling.”
Needless to say, as bookstore owners, the Hills are also avid readers. For this article, Kimberly and Adam have compiled lists of the top five books they have read during their store’s first year, perhaps unsurprisingly duplicating two titles.
Kimberly’s top five books
“Atmosphere” by Taylor Jenkins Reid. “It was such a good book. It’s about a woman who joins the space program. She wants to be an astronaut, and she’s in only the second cohort that accepts females. It was really well thought out and well written.
“Shield of Sparrows” by Devonte Perry. “It’s a fantasy romance, although it’s more fantasy than romance. The world-building and the monsters in it were just really fun and unique, and the ending was kind of crazy.”
“Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds” by David Goggins. “It’s about mental toughness and just taking a look at your own perspective.”
“Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. “It’s a book about leadership. He compares leadership from when he was running missions to when he’s going into businesses and helping them restructure how they view day-to-day work.”
“The National Park Mystery” series by Aaron Johnson. “I read that one to my daughter, and I just thought it was really well done. It had a good balance of adventure, and even though it’s a middle-grade book, I was still kind of fixed on it.”
Adam’s top five books
“Unbreakable Valor” by Drew Webb. “I think it’s a book that’s going to change the world. It’s about moral injury, which is something that is plaguing first responders, veterans, so many different people.”
“Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. “This book taught me so much about leadership, about parenting, and friendship. He said he believes excuses are lies that we tell ourselves to rationalize taking the easy way. If we just took a little bit more ownership, the people around us would not only be happier, but they would do more and be better.”
“Atmosphere” by Taylor Jenkins Reid. “While I lean toward nonfiction, this fiction title is one of my all-time favorites. It will bring tears to your eyes. It will run emotions through your body, and at the end, you will be so happy, so appreciative.”
“All Eternity Lies Before Us” by Loreen Gibbons. “This book is about a local school teacher and her husband, who was a pilot during the Cold War. He actually was a hero because he survived the first time a P3 plane had ever crashed and the first time anybody had ever survived landing in the ocean.”
“Assassins Anonymous” by Rob Hart. “It was so funny, clever and full of twists. Absolutely original. It was a book that I couldn’t put down, and it kept me entertained the whole time.”
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