Books of Wonder Needs To Raise $100,000 to Survive

By Maryann Yin 

Books of Wonder, a New York City-based children’s bookstore, must raise a minimum of $100,000 to stay in business. The independent bookseller has turned to the crowd-funding site indiegogo for the campaign.

As of this writing, they have received more than $20,000 in contributions. The campaign will last for 30 more days. Backers, depending on the amount they donate, can claim a number of special rewards including a Maurice Sendak collection (four signed books), a birthday party at the store and deluxe Harry Potter film posters.

Here’s more about this fundraising campaign: “When we moved into our current space eight years ago, we leased out 40% of the space to a well-established NYC bakery to provide a cafe for our customers. Unfortunately, the Great Recession was even harder on cupcakes than children’s books and they were forced to close, still owing us many months back rent and utilities. Worse still, with the economy hurting, we could not find a new subtenant, and so had to pay the rent on the space we had previously rented. The result of these unexpected expenses, is that BOOKS of WONDER has had to layout over $300,000 in rent and utilities that we expected to be paid by our subtenant. This has strained our resources to the limit. And that is why we are launching this campaign.”