Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 9, 1991                   TAG: 9104090197
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ROBERTA GREEN SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T; THIS STORE'S A MOVING EXPERIENCE

Fifty thousand to 100,000 books.

Fiction and non-fiction.

Cookbooks and photography books. Sci-fi and mysteries. Books about rock music giants such as Bruce Springsteen. Books about computers. Books by one-time presidential hopeful Gary Hart, by W.P. "Shoeless Joe (a.k.a. Field of Dreams)" Kinsella, by mystery writer Elmore Leonard. Books for children and adolescents, including books by Robert Cormier. Books by Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Kidder. And thousands of other books by hundreds of other authors on dozens of other topics.

What store is this?

The Book Cellar.

The Book Cellar, a Virginia-based company, whose New River outlet is at Market Place on U.S. 460, has managed, in the words of its advertising banner, to present "hardcover books at paperback prices."

"It's not an original idea," said W.C. Winkler, co-owner of the Book Cellar and a resident of Charlottesville. "We buy up leftovers from publishers by the truckload, which allows us to give the 50 to 90 percent discounts we do."

Except for the Richmond store, each Book Cellar travels, staying about eight weeks at each site and returning perhaps every six months.

"We pick a town by its education level and also by its size. The Roanoke store is about to tear down and go to Lynchburg, but the New River store should be there through most of April," Winkler said.

The books are marked with the publisher's suggested retail prices and the discounts. Scott Pearce, manager of the Roanoke and Christiansburg stores, said the results have been "phenomenal."

"Avid book readers have been going crazy, returning two, three, four times," said Pearce. "The Christiansburg store is in our smallest area yet, but it seems to be going very well. And as more word of mouth gets out, we expect it to continue to grow."

Winkler agrees. "It's profitable and holding its own, so we're quite pleased."

"We've seen a lot of people, often 30 to 40 in the store at one time," said Chris Barker of the Christiansburg store.

"When people come in, we ask them to fill out self-adhesive mailing labels so we can notify them when we're getting ready to come back," said Gale Mabry, also of Christiansburg.

So the company - and the book offerings - continue to grow.

"The idea was to find a location with enough area to offer four times the number of books available in a regular bookstore," said Pearce.