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A Sunday information session to introduce a community-supported business model for Asbury Park’s words! Bookstore is now at capacity, store manager Liza Minno Bloom said Friday morning.

The independent bookstore is transitioning to a community-owned venture that will be known as the Asbury Book Cooperative.

“We are thrilled,” Minno Bloom said of the community response. Additional information sessions about the Asbury Book Cooperative will be held.

words! Bookstore, located at 623 Cookman Ave for the past 11 years, is the brainchild of Jan Sparrow and Scott Asalone, who also run ASGMC — a management consulting venture founded in 1999 that works to coach, train and motivate middle to senior-level members of the nonprofit and business community via TLC — a teamwork, leadership and communication program.

The cooperative initiative is led by Asalone and Sparrow; along with Minno Bloom, who is also an educator and community organizer; and Janet Torsney, who has had a long career running public libraries.

“Asbury and its neighboring communities have already made words! Bookstore, their own in many meaningful ways—holding parties, readings, book clubs, etc,” Minno Bloom wrote in a guest column in the Nov 21 triCityNews newspaper. “Transitioning words! into the Asbury Book Cooperative [ABC], allows our community to ‘put a ring on it’ and help keep a bookstore in town.”

The new business model will allow patrons to buy shares of the Asbury Book Cooperative.

Members will have a voice in the direction of the cooperative via voting rights during an annual meeting.

Shares are being introduced at a $50 annual rate and through a volunteering option.

There’s also a low-income, pay what you can option of $25 to $49; no questions asked.

Members will receive discounts, members-only sales, access to special events and to author-signed books.

There will also be a $100 annual membership option and a $250 annual solidarity option. Those memberships will have access to other benefits, such as higher discount rates and other perks.

“Many bookstores are transitioning to a member-owned or worker-owned model,” Minno Bloom told the triCityNews in its Nov 7 edition. “It works well with bookstores which are inherently community spaces. It’s way more than a retail space. It’s an art space. It’s an education space. It’s a youth space. It’s a kids’ space. Our space [at Words!] has become really reflective of the Asbury community.”

For information about future information sessions and the Asbury Book Cooperative, email info@asburybookcoop.org. For more information about words! Bookstore, click here.)

[Featured photo courtesy of triCityNews; from left: Store Manager Liza Minno Bloom and words! Owner Jan Sparrow]

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