READING ON THE JOB
By Chris Wadsworth
If you’re a bibliophile, a book lover, you want to spend most of your time around books – reading in a cozy corner, browsing the shelves at a bookshop, maybe discussing your latest reads in a book club.
In that case, Jess Taylor is definitely a book lover. After graduating from the University of North Carolina with a bachelor of fine arts in creative writing and a certificate in publishing, she eventually landed a job at a book publisher in Herndon. She was there for more than six years and rose to the position of acquisitions director.
Then the Ashburn entrepreneur took it a step further – she quit her job and opened an online bookstore called The Reading Chamber.
“I originally decided to take the leap when I became burnt out on my previous job and I was losing the joy of reading,” Taylor said. “I needed to do something that ignited my passion again. Working with books I love and helping readers find titles that I adore brought back my passion and now I get to share that with people.”
The Reading Chamber officially launched in October 2024. It focuses on the YA – or Young Adult – genre, which is close to Taylor’s heart.
“When I was in middle school and high school, I was reading five books a week. I had the idea to create a young adult-only bookstore when I was in high school to give teens and other readers a large selection of books in their age group,” she recalled.
The Reading Chamber is operated out of Taylor’s home in Ashburn’s Metrowalk community. She and her books share the space with her husband, Brendan, and their Bernedoodle, Chandler. (Before you start wondering, yes, the pooch is named for the TV character “Chandler Bing.”)
The Reading Chamber is still small. Taylor estimates she’s had roughly 200 customers in her first year or so, but she’s proud that she’s shipped books and merchandise to 21 states.
“[It’s] a great start for an online business,” she said. “A lot of our customers are repeats, and that makes my heart so full to see their names come across on a new order.”
Taylor says most of her customers are teenage girls and women. Many of them are buying books for themselves, while others are moms, sisters or aunts buying books for a young woman in their lives.
To try to build a business in the 2020s, you have to think outside the box – and Taylor has been working every angle.
She’s experimented with pop-up bookstores at various community events around Northern Virginia. She’s also all over social media with engaging posts on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
The Reading Chamber offers a feature called “Blind Date with a Book” where the customer answers a few basic questions and then Taylor chooses a book for them. They don’t know what book they are getting until they open it.
Another offering is Book Boxes – a subscription where a box with a book and other treats is sent to a client each month. For example, in October, the Book Box had a YA horror book in it and also included Halloween bookmarks and stickers, a recipe for pumpkin pretzel candy and other items.
“Bookselling is a notoriously hard business, so adding some fun and creativity is almost a must in order to have readers choose your shop over others,” she said.
Long term, Taylor hopes to one day have her own brick-and-mortar bookstore. And if she does, she’s confident that YA books will remain a centerpiece of her business model.
“I find young adult books incredibly fun and they can be so much more creative than their adult counterparts. I will never stop reading YA, and a lot of people I know won’t stop either.”