A Commitment to Our Culture has Sparked a Flourishing Books Business
Program Success 24 May 2022
Mahogany Books
A Commitment to Our Culture has Sparked a Flourishing Books Business
By Tracey Y . Smith Guest Columnist The Root
In 2007 , with no experience in digital marketing , Derrick and Ramunda Young turned their commitment to Black culture and love of reading into Mahogany Books , an online destination for Black literature . Fourteen years later , their business now includes a thriving online store , a retail shop located in the Anacostia Arts Center in Washington D . C . and a new store located in National Harbor in Maryland .
In honor of Black Business Month , we talked to Mahogany Books Co-Founder & Co-Owner , Ramunda Young about how they got started ; growing their business during the pandemic ; and advice for other entrepreneurs .
What sparked your interest in selling books ?
Ramunda : Derrick and I were trying to identify how we could make a bigger impact in this world and still be connected to culture and community . Books were very personal for us . We would go on dates in bookstores and take our daughter Mahogany to bookstores . Derrick is from D . C ., so he ’ d been exposed to Black books . I grew up in Tulsa , Oklahoma , near Black Wall Street and never knew the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre until I went to college . When we were tossing around ideas about what kind of business to start , books were a natural driver . Going online allowed us to get books into the hands of people in Oklahoma , Kentucky , Ohio , or wherever .
How did you secure funding to launch Mahogany Books ?
Ramunda : Derrick and I started Mahogany Books with just a laptop in our one-bedroom apartment in Alexandria , Virginia . We have never taken out a bank loan . We were both working full-time when we launched and said , “ We ’ re either going to do this or not .” We pulled from our 401ks and that ’ s how we funded our business . No third parties or bank loans . It was our own money . We ’ ve gotten grants , but we ’ d been in business for ten years at that point with no financial backing from anyone else . Except for our family loaning us a thousand dollars to buy a lot of books at one point and us paying it back , it was just us .
How did you expand your business to include a retail location ?
Ramunda : Being online allowed us to be very impactful with low overhead , but it was always our plan to have a physical location . Our strategy was to get out in the community and build our email list . It was 2007 or 2008 , so I don ’ t think there was social media . We cold called book clubs saying , “ Hey , we see you have a book conference coming up , we would love to provide books for your attendees .” Publishers were not sending midlevel authors on tour so we would get calls saying , “ I saw you at this event , or someone mentioned you . I have a book coming out , can you meet me at this restaurant or nightclub and sell my book ?”
We loaded up our car and met those authors , book clubs , and organizations at their events . It was a lot of long hours and late nights . When we looked up , we had tons of people on our email list and relationships with great authors . We emailed customers about new books , bestsellers , and events . We did that for ten years . When we opened the doors to our physical store in 2017 , it felt like all those people from all those years , came through the doors with us .
Why did you decide to open a second retail location ?
Ramunda : National Harbor opened July 3 , but we were approached by developers in 2019 about opening a second location . During a media interview , we were asked if we were looking to expand and Derrick responded , “ Yes , we are .” After that , we started getting phone calls from shopping centers saying they would love to have us .
Derrick and I had visited National Harbor . It ’ s located in the middle of the DMV and easy to get to . Pre-pandemic , National Harbor would see 14 million visitors with a good mix of tourists and locals . That was important , because it ’ s one thing to build a relationship with people who travel but it ’ s also important to build repeat business and community with people who live there . When they reached out , we thought that leasing space in a center like that would be out of our league , but we were wrong .
They were very accommodating and open to getting not only our Black business , but other Black businesses there as well . Because of COVID , that build out process took a lot longer .
How did you keep your business going during the pandemic ?
Ramunda : Washington , D . C . shut down last March , three or four days before a big author event we had scheduled . We still had the online business , but our in-store revenue had started to supersede online sales . Cancelling that author event and looking at our revenue projections was very scary .