Amherst Books Begins Search for New Ownership

Co-owners of Amherst Books Nat Herold and Shannon Ramsey began the process of selling their store — located at 8 Main Street, the center of the town — and its inventory earlier this year.

In an interview with The Student about the transfer of the store’s ownership, Herold stated that Ramsey has interviewed potential buyers and investors, and the store has accumulated concrete interest. 

Herold shared that they have made considerable efforts to advertise the store: “We put out ads in the New England Booksellers Association and the American Booksellers Association.” He also cited an article published in the Hampshire Gazette in March as helping to raise awareness. “We’ve had a lot of interest in people buying the bookshop. At the moment, we have two or three groups who are very interested in buying the shop,” Herold said.

He also explained that patrons can expect the store to undergo new ownership before the end of this summer due to Ramsey’s decision to attend graduate school in the fall. “I’m already 25% retired, so her decision … really precipitated this,” Herold said. “Since she’s starting in September, we need to sell the shop by the end of the summer.”

Herold also has a deep-rooted association with the book-selling and store ownership industry in Amherst, one that to him seems to have reached its natural conclusion. “I did bookkeeping in an earlier bookstore, but times have changed, and everything’s web-based tools these days or apps … I don’t have the energy or the time to learn all of that stuff,” he said. Herold ran Goliard Books on North Pleasant Street from 1983 to 1990 and managed Atticus Books on Main Street in 1998, which he then transformed into Amherst Books with Mark Wootten in 2003.

However, Herold shared that he intends to maintain some involvement in Amherst Books under new ownership. “I expect most of this staff, if not all, will continue on into the future under a different owner. I would like to stay at least half-time to help with the transition, and just continue working here as long as I can,” he said.

Amherst Books previously supplied textbooks for the college but stopped doing so when the Amherst College Textbook Solution (ACTS) was implemented in 2024. In an interview with The Student, Associate Vice President for Operations Ralph Johnson shared details of the extensive, stakeholder-driven Request for Proposal (RFP), which selected the educational company Follett to supply textbooks under ACTS. “We wanted to make sure that before we proceeded, we talked with the president’s cabinet or senior staff and got feedback from them. We then met with [the Association of Amherst Students] and got student feedback,” he said. 

Johnson also stated that each academic department and vendor was also consulted during the process, in addition to a “check-off process” with peer institutions to see how a similar process was working there. “The RFP had five categories, and we received feedback from five different constituents … before we proceeded,” he said.

In an email to The Student, Vice President for Communications Sandy Genelius said that “[Amherst Books] declined to participate in the RFP process for the Amherst College Textbook Solution.” However, she also shared that the college has continued to rely on the bookstore to supply materials for key projects, including the Demott Lecture Series.

In reference to this decision to stop supplying the college’s books, Herold stated that Amherst Books saw the college’s guidelines for the RFP as unfeasible. “They wanted us to jump through hoops that no independent bookstore could jump through, so they made a deal with Follett,” he said.

Herold affirmed that Amherst Books continues to supply books for faculty lectures and events. “We supply books for their visiting writer series, and occasionally … they need [dozens of] copies of the instructor’s latest book to pass around to the people who will be deciding whether they get tenure or not,” he said. “A lot of the departments and the [CHI Visiting Writers Series] ask us to get books regularly for their events, which is really wonderful.”

Herold expressed his desire for community and college connections to continue under new ownership. “The three groups of people that are most likely to buy it are all interested in keeping the connections and the sorts of things that we do for community outreach and the community to keep going, and of course, they’ll need people who have those connections to help them with that,” he said.

In addition to continuity of community, Herold shared that new ownership has the potential to develop the store, such as its relatively new romance, horror, and true crime sections. “There are all sorts of things that, if I had the energy and Shannon had the time, that we would have expanded and developed already, and we’re really looking forward to somebody picking up our torch and continuing on the same path but expanding their horizons,” he said.