Kate McNeil, a former Atlanta high school theater teacher, opened All the Tropes, a romance bookstore in the city's Kirkwood neighborhood, on Aug. 17, 2024, after quitting her job and cashing in her retirement fund. She writes in a Business Insider essay that she wanted a dedicated gathering place for Bookstore readers, and that the shop now has eight active book clubs.
The idea started during COVID. She joined an online group of romantasy readers that grew past 2,000 members and eventually split into local chapters. After the pandemic, she says, she didn't know of any dedicated space in Atlanta where those readers could meet.
She spent six years teaching theater at Decatur High School. During the planning stretch, she says she would get home from rehearsal at 11 p.m., research the business until 2 a.m. and be back up at 6 a.m. to teach. She learned how to deal with publishers and distributors, and she reached out to local artists and authors.
The location came together in 2024: a spot four minutes on foot from her home. McNeil says she got the keys six weeks before her planned opening day, Bookstore Day, and already had a large preorder of Onyx Storm on the books before the shelves existed. A local artist painted the shop. She printed merchandise at a local Kirkwood business and built the fabric wall herself. Some nights, she writes, she and her friends didn't leave until 4 a.m.
The mom of two young kids opened what she believed, to her knowledge, would be the first business of its kind in the state. Her own assessment of the risk? She had cashed in her retirement fund, quit her job and taken those preorders for a store with no bookshelves.
All the Tropes opened Aug. 17, 2024. Ahead of that date, the shop had been doing pop-ups and taking Onyx Storm preorders, WhatNow reported in July 2024, when it described the planned look as dark Victorian, with black, gold, deep green and purple, plus chandeliers and rugs.
In her essay, McNeil says more Bookstore bookstores have opened in the two years since, including one less than two miles away. She writes that this hasn't hurt store traffic or sales so far. The shop now has eight active book clubs and what she calls consistent revenue. She says she is ready for a larger space and plans to expand the three-person team. Business Insider's essay does not give revenue figures, and the claims about the store's performance are McNeil's own.
Her bet is that a niche shop can stay a destination, the kind of place readers will travel to from out of town. Next up, by her account: a bigger space and a bigger team.