125 Years of ABA: Q&A with Tegan Tigani

This year marks ABA’s 125th year of helping indie bookstores thrive. As part of our 125th anniversary celebration, we’ll be sharing interviews with key figures in the industry and exploring how the organization has changed since its inception in 1900.

Tegan Tigani is the current ABA Board President. Her election in 2023 was a milestone, as she is the first Board President that is not a bookstore owner. Tigani has more than twenty years experience in bookselling, and is currently the children's book buyer at Queen Anne Book Company in Seattle, Washington. Her term as President will end later this year.

This week, Tigani sat down with Bookselling This Week to discuss her time on the Board, the industry changes she's witnessed over her bookselling career, and her hopes for the future.

Bookselling This Week: Why don't we start with a little bit of your background? How long have you been in bookselling? How did you end up here?

Tegan Tigani: The one-word answer is serendipity. I became a bookseller in 1999. I had graduated from college and couldn't start in the workforce right away because my mom was ill. I was caring for her and my boyfriend at the time (now husband) had been recruited by Microsoft.

He came out from the East Coast to the Pacific Northwest and we tried the long distance thing, but it was hard. After my mom passed, my dad said, “Take the minivan. Follow your heart.” So I drove to the Pacific Northwest and wound up in Seattle.

On my first full day in Seattle, my boyfriend took me to Queen Anne Avenue Books, which was his neighborhood bookstore. And I was smitten. I just loved it. (Our second date ever was at Harvard Book Store, so we had a history of bookstore dates.)

I had been sending resumes to museums — I was hoping to get a job in museum education because I had studied history and science — but nobody was getting back to me. But when I was walking by the bookstore the next day, there was a sign in the window that said “Booklover Wanted. Part Time.” And I thought, “I have college loans to pay off. That would be a great way to just get my paycheck flowing again.”

I went in with my resume, and absolutely loved both of the store owners. Evidently, they loved me too, because I was hired on the spot.

I was just part time to begin with, and I soon got a job at the Children's Museum in Seattle. So, I was working in museums, but not really the way I wanted to. I was doing five days a week there and one day a week at the bookstore. The bookstore was always the sixth day of work for me, and it just made the end of my week so amazing that I felt like this was what I was drawn to do.

Eventually, I wound up being full-time at the bookstore, being the manager, being the event coordinator, being the children's book buyer. I sent myself to PNBA — with the blessing of the store owners — because I wanted to meet people and learn more about the industry. I got more involved in PNBA and in ABA, and now it's been over 26 years.

It's been a long time, but I love it. It's something that you have to invest in as a profession, because it takes commitment. I've been so grateful to have the regional trade organization and the national trade organization to keep me connected and learning and motivated throughout all these years.

Bookselling definitely has so many pleasures, but it has a lot of challenges, and the national perspective and the idea of being involved in making the industry stronger has really kept me going.

BTW: I love the honesty when people talk about the serendipity or luck involved in where they ended up. When you didn’t have a plan, and it just worked out.

TT: Sometimes you say “yes” to things. To be fair, I also do a lot of other jobs. That's one of the things about being in our industry, sometimes you need to supplement.

But when I think about the one thing that when I put energy in, I get the most out — it’s bookselling. I love that.

I also work as a developmental editor, so I see books, not at their very beginning, but at their rougher stages. I get to see them go through the process, all the way to going home with someone. It's like I get that full circle of a book experience.

BTW: I love that. And if I remember correctly, you're our first president who is not a bookstore owner.

TT: Yes, and I'm not currently the manager of our store either. That has been something that I'm really proud of, being able to show that you can work your way up. The real thing for me is how invested you can be as a bookseller — invested in the industry, invested in your own store. You don't have to have your money in the store to be invested in it.

Part of that is my great privilege, to have the time to donate as a Board Member and as the President. But I think you can be a leader in our industry, no matter what you do day to day.

BTW: Are there any accomplishments that you're particularly proud of, or any projects that you’re particularly proud to have been a part of, either during your term as President or your overall time on the Board?

TT: I can claim nothing about the amazing people who were already on the Board when I started. But after I started on the Board, I got to serve on the Nominating Committee.

Looking at the current makeup of the Board and the people I've gotten to serve with since I started, I’m happy that I’ve gotten to be part of the Nominating Committee and part of those discussions about the Board pipeline. The leaders that I'm surrounded by inspire me so much, that I’m proud of my part in that.

I can claim nothing on this one either, but I'm excited about the hard work that ABA is doing around banned books.

It’s so important to keep fighting for the right to read in every way. As a children's book buyer, I've been a champion of We Need Diverse Books since that wonderful program came together. I have always said to my reps, “We need books that represent readers.”

We need books that represent all different kinds of readers. We all learn through books, whether it's affirming us or showing us another way to live and be and thrive.

For me, fighting banned books is also fighting to keep publishing diverse books — books that kids and adults need. This is particularly exciting since we’re talking on the day Children’s Institute registration opens, but there's something about children's books that can sometimes heal grown-ups as well. When they start limiting what kids can read, it's hurting all of us. So I love that we're fighting so hard as an organization to support the right to read.

BTW: You mentioned book banning as one of the challenges booksellers are facing. What are some challenges you’ve seen booksellers overcome?

TT: When I first started getting involved in ABA, there was a lot of talk about tax fairness. Some online retailers were not charging sales taxes.

And I loved that ABA was saying, “No, it doesn't make sense that just because you're a giant corporation you don't have to charge sales tax.”

The tax fairness battle was something that I was very invested in, and it didn't just benefit booksellers. It’s interesting that children's booksellers are often on the front lines of social issues, that booksellers are on the forefront of small business issues.

That’s just one example where we were able to really participate and benefit not just bookstores, but independent and small businesses all around the country.

Right now, we're seeing a similar thing with credit card swipe fees.

I see real potential for this to help a lot of small businesses around the country. I'm really proud of the work ABA is doing.

Another thing during my time that has been tremendous is IndieCommerce. When I started in bookselling, so much was not online. We had actual microfiche for looking at books in print, and we would call up Baker & Taylor and ask if they had a book in stock.

So, I've seen huge changes in technology. And I'm very proud that our industry was pretty far ahead, in regards to IndieCommerce, when the lockdown happened.

In our state, we were not allowed to go into our store during lockdown. Only the owner was allowed into the store if there was an emergency.

We were all in our homes, but we were able to do a phone call and talk through how we were going to use our website — which we already had and our customers already knew about — to run a bookstore remotely. The fact that we already had such a robust platform through IndieCommerce just made everything so much easier. It made our business viable.

I saw our neighboring stores, like clothing boutiques, who were working through an Instagram page. Customers could bring a check to their store and drop it off in exchange for a grab bag. And we were doing that to support one another, but our customers could look up a specific book, order it, and have it delivered right to their house.

When you think of bookstores, you think of the smell of a bookstore or the warm bookseller welcoming you in. You think of somebody giving your dog a treat. A website can’t do any of that.

But a website got us through that really hard time, and it has continued to be a way for us to reach people across the country.

And the ability to personalize the templates has helped us keep our personality on the web, but still have that consistent selling platform. It has the functionality that we need, and there's no way that we could have programmed that ourselves.

For me, those are all big wins. It's incredible how the organization has been able to support our stores through so much

BTW: So, we've made it 125 years. Do you have any hopes for what our next 125 will look like?

TT: Ooh. Increasing the diversity and distribution of bookstores, that's something I'm hoping for.

I realize there are still so many book deserts. I live in a beautiful book bubble here in Seattle. We have about 23 bookstores participating in our Seattle Independent Bookstore Day Passport. It feels like every neighborhood has its bookstore and it's such a good feeling. I wish that every community in our country had that.

I think there is opportunity there. We have so many readers who also want to be business people. And there are so many creative thinkers and creative ways to do that, for example with pop-ups and mobile stores.

And so I feel like the more places we have to get books and get inspiration and talk to readers, um the better it is not just for our industry, but really for our communities and for our country.

And right now we need everything we can to connect people and help them be critical, empathetic thinkers.

So in the next 125 years, I hope that there is a bookstore in every community.