Bookish Business: Coastal Cowboy Romance Bookstore

Coastal Cowboy Romance Bookstore, Nashville's bookish lovechild of beachy charm and honky tonk heart, is here, with plans of putting boots down in L&L Market this December. Currently nestled in East Nashville's boutique Whiskey Water, the welcoming energy, retro vibes, and curated selection of love stories (both indie and traditionally published) are sure to steal your heart. Additionally, Coastal Cowboy Romance Bookstore will be the first Indigenous-owned, romance-only bookstore.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Amanda, the founder of Coastal Cowboy Romance Bookstore, to learn all about this exciting venture, what's to come, and how to support her.

What can we expect from the L&L Market location?

A: It's going to be a full buildout, full brick and mortar. We have 600 sq. ft. that we're going to dedicate to just all the bookshelves. So, it's going to be quite substantial. I'm not going to do the traditional, alphabetized, author route. I'm going to be organizing each genre of romance. It would be, 'D' for dark romance, 'C' for contemporary, and so on.

Tell me more about opening the first Indigenous-owned, romance-only bookstore.

A: When I first started dreaming of this business, I googled whether there were any brick and mortar bookstores — let alone romance-only bookstores — owned by Indigenous women in America. I couldn’t find any. That was disheartening. What I did find was that only 1% of all small businesses in the U.S. are Indigenous-owned. One percent. That number is far too small — and this bookstore is one step toward changing it.

How can the book community support you?

A: The best place would be my Kickstarter. All of those funds will go toward building out the place. I'm going to hire a professional this time, and I'm going to get lots of bookcases to go in there because it's such a big space, and I'll need a lot more books to fill those bookcases.

A: It's cool, too, because the Kickstarter will actually link all of the shipping and all of the payment details for each reward that you purchase. There's really cute bookmarks and

t-shirts, and you can sponsor a shelf or a genre where you can put your name or a book that you've picked on it. We also have permanent spots for people to write a book review, and they can share their social media handle.

Note: The bookstore also hosts several fun book events (both free and paid), so be sure to check those out here.

Why the name Coastal Cowboy?

A: At the beach on vacation this summer got my brain working, and I thought it would be so cute. At the time, I was reading a lot; I actually finished the Legacy series while I was in Florida - It's by far my favorite series. But then, we came home, and then two weeks later, we drove to Myrtle Beach. On the way there, I was just thinking about my job and thinking about what I would want to do, and I just came up with the name Coastal Cowboy. I was thinking, "Nashville doesn't have a brick and mortar romance bookstore, it sounds very aesthetically pleasing." It's kind of a balance between both worlds, I feel, for people that want to go on vacation and how Nashville is a huge tourist destination for being the cowboy/cowgirl capital of the world other than Texas. It just fit!

What helped you decide to take this step?

A: I am a single mom, and I have to work full-time to support my son and myself. Being a full-time parent, I wanted something where I could put my own hours and also be able to bring him with me. And of course, I love reading and all things bookish.

How have your peers supported you along this journey?

A: My dad always drilled into me as a kid that whoever you surround yourself with will either help or hinder you. So, it was really important to me to be surrounded by uplifting, supportive women that are have similar interests and similar businesses, because we can all learn from each other. So many have been very, very helpful, like Shadowed Pages has been such a huge help for me, especially for bouncing ideas around and running any sort of issue or worry that I've had, and they've been very kind and very welcoming; They've been just amazing. I feel like it's really important to have those friends in the industry when you're starting a business; Not only when it's something so personal as reading, but also romance books because of the delicate nature of just people's opinions and living in the Bible Belt.