- Luci Slawnyk created Wanderlust Book Bazaar, a romance and fantasy-focused mobile bookstore.
- Since debuting in July, the decorated trailer has drawn crowds at farmers markets, breweries and artisan events.
- Stocked with books Slawnyk loves, plus trending titles and publisher picks, the store reflects her personal reading tastes and aims to support local businesses.
Luci Slawnyk is bringing something unique to the Northern Kentucky bookish community.
“I normally refer to it as a mobile bookstore,” Slawnyk said. “Sometimes people call it the book trailer. Some of the book girls are starting to call it the ‘smut truck.'”
Wanderlust Book Bazaar is a business born out of Slawnyk’s love for reading, but more specifically, her love for romance and fantasy.
Slawnyk said she has always been an avid reader.
“In my life, I have read thousands of books,” she said. “It’s always been a huge passion.”
But she fell in love with fantasy with one particular series.
Her son and daughter are now 20 and 17, respectively, but back when her son was young and her daughter was a baby, the Twilight series came out.
“I devoured all the Twilight books in like three days,” she said. “I took basic care of my children. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep, and that was kinda my introduction to fantasy.”
Slawnyk said she has had the idea for the mobile bookstore for a while and had even put together a business plan a year ago. A full-time medical coder, she said that time constraints from her demanding 9-to-5 job were part of what was holding her back.
Her best friend, who is an entrepreneur herself and owns The Colonel’s Creamery in Florence, gave her the final push to start Wanderlust.
“She convinced me to kind of just go for it,” Slawnyk said. “She’s like, ‘I know you want to do this really bad, I don’t know what’s standing in your way other than yourself.’ And she was 100% right.”
Two days after she talked with her friends, Slawnyk bought the trailer. That was in May, and by July 21, she had her first soft opening. By Aug. 3, she held her first full event.
But before she could officially launch, she had to make the trailer pretty.
“I basically gutted the entire thing and painted it and added lots of bookshelves,” she said.
The trailer is filled with bookshelves (of course) that are bolted down to keep from shifting while it’s on the road. The whole thing is also wallpapered, and the ceiling is covered in faux flowers, which Slawnyk said she has gotten a lot of compliments on.
When LINK nky spoke to Slawnyk, she had just finished with her first event at Verona Vineyards Farmers & Artisan Market.
Alison Gambrel, event coordinator for the market, said that she had never seen anything like Wanderlust, but she was excited to have Slawnyk after she reached out and asked for a spot.
“She really brought people in,” Gambrel told LINK. “She was new and everybody flocked to her.”
The farmers and artisan market, held on the first Sunday of the month from May through September, has been running for three years. Gambrel said they get around 500-600 visitors to each market.
During the Aug. 3 market, Gambrel said, “I had vendors, customers, everybody was talking about how cute her setup was and just how they loved the mobile bookstore.”
For her part, Slawnyk said she was surprised and humbled by how supported she’s felt.
“I mean, people are kind of just showing up to these events,” Slawnyk said. “People who are not even readers, they think it’s cool, and they want to see it. It’s kinda of a bit of a spectacle.”
Slawnyk said she is booked out for August and September and “I keep adding more events, I keep saying I’m not going to, and then I keep doing it.”
When picking locations, Slawnyk said she wants to find places that fit her demographic (20s to late 40s) and general vibe. Her soft opening, which was at Fabled Brew Works in Erlanger, was just the place.
“It has a cool fantasy type of vibe, so I felt like that would go over very well with my customers, and I was 100% correct,” Slawnyk said. “That was absolutely the place to have my opening night. We had probably a couple hundred people that showed up. It was amazing.”
She had also inadvertently gotten in with a few book clubs, some of which have shown up with all of their members at her events.
As a small business owner herself, Slawnyk, who lives in Union, said she wants to park her bookstore at local independent businesses to “try and drive my customers towards their businesses, to bless their businesses also.”
Right now, she is sticking in NKY, but in the future, she may cross the river.
“I can barely get to all the Northern Kentucky folks that want me to come hang out in their parking lot,” she said. “So I’m not in a huge hurry to get to Ohio.”
How does Slawnyk pick the books she stocks? Similarly to how she picks what she wants to read next: It’s all based on her mood.
“A lot of the books that I carry are ones that I have read and I love and I want other people to love too,” Slawnyk said.
Others, she said, include publisher recommendations or books that are currently very popular, and she knows people are interested in reading them.
Right now, the Wanderlust team is just Slawnyk and occasionally her family. Her husband pulls the trailer because she said she hasn’t figured out how to do that yet. Her daughter and stepson helped out a bit with some of the trailer buildout, and she is hoping to bring her daughter in on the retail side more.
Slawnyk said she is super happy with the response she has received so far and is really excited to grow her audience on social media to reach everyone who wants to come out to an event.
Wanderlust Book Bazaar’s next stop is this Saturday at Wooden Cask Brewing in Newport from noon to 4 p.m. Find more information at wanderlustbookbazaar.com.
