CAITLIN and Cathy Taber have been running Hamilton’s beloved bookstore, Bellcourt Books for a little over a year but COVID-19 restrictions have prevented the mother-daughter duo from hosting in-store events until now.

On Monday, February 21, Bellcourt Books will welcome author and former Australian Ambassador to China, Geoff Raby for an in-person signing of his latest book, ‘China's Grand Strategy and Australia's Future in the New Global Order’.

Caitlin said she was looking forward to hosting the in-store event and hoped to run more like it in the future.

“It’s our first time hosting an event in-store,” she said.

“It’s quite a specialised, niche market, I suppose, that particular book.

“There has been a bit of interest in it, so we’ve excited to see how many people turn up … I’m pretty impressed with the numbers of people who have expressed interest.”

For Caitlin, running a bookstore had always been something she dreamed of doing but it was not until the family walked into Bellcourt Books during a visit to Hamilton in 2020 that she thought it could ever become a reality. 

“I was working up in Horsham in the library … it’s something I never thought I’d be able to do, and I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing,” she said.

After 33 years as a primary school teacher, Cathy said she had had enough and was ready to take on a new challenge with Caitlin by her side.

“We just came in here one day and she (Caitlin) happened to say to Guy (Stephens), ‘this is my dream to own a bookshop like this’ and he said, ‘as it happens, we’ve actually wanting to sell but we haven’t actually gone on the market so if you’re interested here is the information’ – it just all went from there,” Cathy said.

“We’ve never been in business before, so it was learning everything from the beginning … lots of reading, lots of asking people.

“Guy and Sue are really supportive, and the biggest help has been Ellen who worked for them for ten years - she’s still working here with us and she’s amazing … we couldn’t have done it without her help.”

While the family has been wrapping the heads around the ins-and-outs of running the store, they have also dealt with the tragic passing of their youngest daughter ‘Boey’ in December 2020.

As a tribute to their daughter, the Taber’s have dedicated their LGBTQIA+ bookshelf to her memory.

“The bookshelf we’ve got in there is a tribute to her … we’ve been trying to learn the bookshop and deal with that at the same time,” Cathy said.

On the side of ‘Boey’s shelf’ the Taber family have added a dedication that reads, ‘Boey was a fierce advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community, a lover of all animals and made for anything Disney. We keep this shelf in honour of everything ‘Boey’ stood for. Loved beyond words, missed beyond measure.’

 Running a physical bookstore in the age of online retailers like Amazon and local giants, Kmart and Target, has its challenges and the added obstacle of COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions have made the Taber’s first year in business difficult.

Cathy said when it came to taking on the retail giants as an independent bookstore you must have a point of difference.

Caitlin has made an effort to enhance the stores online presence and quickly set up Facebook and Instagram accounts when they took over the business and said it has helped bring in a younger customer base.

“That was probably one of the first things I did … so, all the new books that come in I photograph them in their genre groups, and I put a post up,” she said.

“That’s really taken off - we’ve got a lot more followers than I expected to get but a lot of people come in and say, ‘I saw this on Instagram, have you still got it?’.

“Social media has really helped with bolstering genre groups.”

For Bellcourt Books, catering for the customer and providing the best service possible is where they differ from their competitors, and Cathy and Caitlin regularly go out of their way to chase titles for their loyal customers.

“It’s really difficult, Kmart can sell books cheaper than we can buy them wholesale so you have to have a different marketing approach to that, more personal, we can get it for you,” Cathy said.

“Often, they will say I don’t care if it costs a bit more, I want to buy local from a physical bookstore.

“People would call up and then come and collect them at the door … we also did a lot of deliveries for the older people they would call up and we would pop the books in their mailbox, so that kept us going through the shutdowns.

“It’s the atmosphere – we have a lot of people who walk in and say, ‘oh it’s a real bookshop.’

“The atmosphere and the smell of old books and we have the jazz music going quietly - that sort of thing.

“It’s interesting, we had a lady come by not too long ago stick her head through the door then back out and scream out to her husband, ‘It’s a real bookshop’ and then they both came in.”