Successful independent bookstore owner tells secrets of survival - One of the headliners at the educational sessions being presented in conjunction with the Spring Book Show at Atlanta’s World Congress Center on March 23-25 is the co-owner of an independent bookstore that’s been in business for more than 30 years. While many independent bookstore operators have been driven out of business by competition from bookstore chains and big-box discount stores moving into their market, her store has prospered and grown. She’s Gayle Shanks, a member of the board of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) and an independent bookseller herself. She will share her remarkable success story – and a few of the trade secrets that helped her along the way – at a seminar for operators of SIBA member stores. Shanks and partner Bob Sommer started out in 1974 with a 500-square-foot used bookstore in Tempe, Ariz.