In the heart of Coulonges-sur-l’Autize, rue du Château, the warm yellow of a wall-mounted façade contrasts sharply with the palette usually tolerated in town centers.
Thus appears, with a sunflower glow, the bookstore of Alice Avril, l’Irréel, a magical place (where we find new and second-hand books) but unexpected when we know how hearts die out of our cities. “A lot of people have told me: opening a business in a town of two thousand inhabitants is already risky. But then a bookstore!….”
Alice, 29, allows herself to laugh about it today. She was predicted the worst, that she would not last six months. However, this Monday, October 7, 2024, it has been one year to the day since she opened her shop. And she’s still there. She has not yet earned a salary and the support of her parents, owners of the premises, remains vital to her business but a few days ago she received reassuring approval from her accountant: the bookstore is not in deficit. . Relief from a first step taken.
“Many people tell me they are happy to no longer have to order from Amazon”
Better still, the clientele was immediately there, with readers coming from all walks of life, all ages, all categories…. As for new books, “lots of customers [lui] say they are happy to no longer have to order from Amazon. On the bookseller side, word of mouth worked so well, so many books were given or sold to him (“People are reluctant to throw away their books”) that she had to put the kibosh on it: “I don’t have any more room to put everything!” »
However, the matter was not won: Alice conceded that she only knew about the profession what she had observed during her year spent at France Loisirs in Tours. In other words, not much. At least not his style of business.
She launched without market research. Just motivated by this love of books born in childhood coupled with“a capricious desire to have no one on our back”.
Alice Avril in front of her bookstore, l’Irréel, on rue du Château in Coulonges-sur-l’Autize, where she has already welcomed around ten authors.
© (Photo NR, Emmanuel Touron)
Elan
The graduate in arts history concedes that, if she had published a business plan, she probably would not have launched into it head first. But his momentum was good: started with “three times nothing”the new section now has nearly a thousand items, slowly expanding as money comes in and according to customer aspirations. And she no longer counts the second-hand books she collects, the latest batches of which pile up on a display stand, in such a mess that there are inevitably good surprises hidden there.
Respiration
Formerly a popular clothing store, which later became a tea room and then a community café, the premises had been disused for several years. Here he is breathing again.
And if Alice’s bookstore, like Mûcha, the “gourmet salon-second-hand boutique” opened almost at the same time and a few meters away by Sarah Pigeaud (her rooibos is a delight), marked a sort of turning point , the beginning of a renewed interest in peripheral towns and villages? The young autodidact is not far from thinking so, who experiences the creation of her store a little like “a militant act”. She is not wrong, her approach could well be the exact antidote to rural desertification.
Yes, his Unreal is there.
The next meeting proposed by Alice Avril at l’Irréel will take place on Wednesday, December 18 at 6 p.m. with Ker Batia for her book “In interim, salary mismatches”.
