QnA With New Owners of Outside of a Dog
Local book and board game store, Outside of a Dog, had its grand re-opening on Sept. 25. After the previous owners moved out of state, Nova and Elias Donstad purchased and refurbished the store over the summer.
The day after the re-opening, Elias Donstad sat down for an interview with The Volante to answer some of the questions posed by members of the Vermillion community.
Why did you buy the store?
“When we heard that Mike was leaving for the reasons that he was (anti trans policy), we were really saddened. We didn’t want to see the store go…and we bought the store because we just really wanted to see this stay here. We didn’t want that to be the last note of the bookstore and so, we’re both trans, we wanted to maintain a safe place for people.”
What do you hope to bring to the community with your reopening?
“We really want to bring just a positive, safe place where people can be themselves, enjoy whatever genre they find themselves gravitating to…[we want to] hold space for people to build community and to build literacy. Children’s book club and children’s literacy is especially important to Nova…being able to have book clubs to get people reading, and to just see, especially young people grow in their reading, is something that we especially want.”
Do you plan to keep the spirit of the store the same as the original? And if so, how do you hope to do so?
“I think the spirit will organically change. We’ve changed the space quite a bit. Our own personalities are kind of reflected on how things are organized, [like] the wall colors. So I don’t know how I would necessarily quantify or qualify the spirit of the store…we know that there are some things definitely staying the same – but some things have already changed, and we’ll just keep seeing how that grows with the community of people around us… I think this spirit is something slightly outside of our control. It requires a lot more than just us two.”
What has been the biggest challenge with reopening the store?
“The biggest challenge is those kinds of silly items, like we had some building issues… figuring out the point of sales system, and figuring out how we wanted to have things show up physically. I don’t know if there was one specific thing that was the hardest, but kind of a collection of elements that needed to to line up in a certain way that presented challenges.”
What is your plan to keep your stock up to date/fresh?
“So especially with Modern fiction, we really like to have the books…be something published within the, at the very least the year, but within a few months, and to keep those dates very current, having the new fiction and new nonfiction section, and a lot of what the the ABA (American Booksellers Association) does, and other publishing and distributors have resources for us. But we also do love what you might quantify as the classics…We want to have some staples of books that stay on the shelf forever. And I think there’s a reason they stay on the shelf forever. Why you can find them in most places for books. So we want to maintain shelf space and heart space for those titles as well.”
Will Facebook be the main way to keep up to date on Outside of a Dog news? Or will you expand your social media presence?
“We’re hoping to expand our social media…Nova is a lot better at some of that than I am. Something like Tiktok [or] Instagram. We’re also partnering with VCDC (Vermillion area Chamber and Development Company) so we’re hoping to have a ribbon cutting sometime in the next month…they’re really good about publicizing things. So we’re looking at different avenues to make sure that folks know about what’s happening with us, and that we’re able to put [news] out.”
What will be your operating hours going forward?
“Our operating hours are going to be 10 to 7, Monday to Thursday, and then 10 to 8, Friday and Saturday, and then closed Sunday.”
What have you changed in the store that is different from the original?
“I think some of the more tangible changes [are] the paint color, having these crinkly lights…we also moved the staff picks to different floating shelves around the store where you can see staff spotlight stickers…research shows that customers will go from right to left around the store, and I really wanted the Native American and LGBTQ+ shelf to be that first thing that customers can look at.”
What will stay the same from the original store?
“One of Mike’s rules was to always have a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and that’s a title that I enjoy as well. We were hoping to expand book clubs to have a rotating horror/mystery type, but also keep a kids book club, keep modern fiction book club, keep romance book club. I think we should have those events remain the same.”
Would you be interested in teaming up with any USD clubs in the future?
“Absolutely! Yeah, we’d be thrilled to partner with anyone from any club or from USD that has an idea that they want to bring to us, or what we can offer.”
Some of the genres the store includes are young adult, children’s, mystery, and nonfiction, with a small selection of manga and comics.
Their board game selection is diverse, ranging from the classics like Risk and Clue, to more niche games like Exit: The Game and Star Wars: Rebellion. In addition, the store has a wide selection of dice sets and miniatures, as well as other table top accessories.
Outside of a Dog is located on 5 Court St, Vermillion SD, and will be open 10a.m.-7p.m. Mon-Thurs and 10a.m.-8p.m. Fri-Sat and their Facebook account is Outside of a Dog books and games.
