Mobile bookstores Virgo Rising and The Wandering Page are bringing stories to Long Island communities

When Barbara McNiff, 70, first encountered  The Wandering Page bookmobile at a Wantagh block party, she was intrigued. 

The store included local authors and craft goods, and its atmosphere made it seem like "really a special place," said McNiff, who especially liked the blind-date-with-a-book packages, which feature a surprise book with small book-themed goodies.

The Wantagh resident loved the store so much, in fact, that she asked owner Denise Cruz to set up the trailer outside an October book club she hosted with friends. The women packed into the mobile store Thursday night, shopping for books, art and gifts for their grandchildren. McNiff, who had invited her grandkids to visit, held three blind book dates as she shopped and chatted with friends. 

The Wandering Page officially opened in mid-September, weeks after the launch of fellow wheeled book vendor Virgo Rising. The two businesses travel the region to sell literature and other wares from custom-made vehicles at fairs, book clubs and other events, and mark the first roving book vendors to crop up on Long Island  amid an explosion in mobile sellers in 2025.  

There are nearly 100 bookstores on wheels around the country registered with the national trade group American Booksellers Association. The oldest mobile bookstore registered with the organization opened in 2013. While the number of traveling booksellers recorded by the group gradually ticked up over the years, 2025 has marked the most new vendors by far, with 64 ABA-registered mobile stores opening across the country. 

Experts say this business format is a way for small business owners to test the market without expensive overhead, and allows vendors to meet customers "where they're at." The trend also fits into a larger national resurgence of independent bookstores, which have opened in large numbers since the pandemic, marking what experts view as a shift in consumer attitudes to focus on more value-driven shopping.

"We saw this incredible rally at the end of 2020 with customers … really understanding the need to support local businesses in their communities,” said Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association. 

An indie bookstore renaissance

The number of independent bookstores plummeted after the launch of Amazon in 1995, from around 7,000 in 1994 to 1,651 in 2009. That number ticked up in small increments in the years following, but skyrocketed after 2020, with indie shops increasing 70% to 3,281, according to ABA data.

The rally was partially pushed by people motivated to both shop and work "in alignment with their values," Hill said.

Many new store owners have cashed out their retirement funds or resorted to crowdfunding to launch their businesses, she said. “You’re looking at stores that are often opened by your neighbors who, in some cases, either live in the neighborhood or have returned to their hometown because they want to give back to the community, and they want to share their passion for books.”

That’s why Denise Cruz, 47, of North Bellmore, opened The Wandering Page.

The lifelong reader and high school Spanish teacher  in the Sewanhaka Central School District loves discussing books with her students and carefully curates her inventory with multiple genres she can recommend to all ages. She also sells bookish-themed merchandise, including stickers and journals she makes herself, blind date book packages, and art and novels created by Long Islanders.

“I’ve always wanted to open a bookstore, but I’ve been afraid because I am a full-time teacher,” said Cruz, who staffs the store herself when she sets up as a pop-up at local businesses and community events in her free time. 

Nikki Parnell and her fiancee, Christy Vigliotte, opened Virgo Rising for similar reasons, building the mobile together over the summer and launching a “traveling sanctuary” filled with the magic of stories — quite literally, with books inspired by the Alice Hoffman classic “Practical Magic” and spiritual goods that include tarot cards, crystals and products from small artisans. Like The Wandering Page, the store also sells blind dates with a book and moon-shaped wreaths that Parnell makes herself.

“I have always been so in love with books, and with anything witchy,” said Parnell, 39, who lives on the border of Lake Grove and Centereach. “I wanted to marry my two passions.”

She opened a mobile bookstore to avoid the high startup costs associated with a brick-and-mortar location. The format also allows the couple to travel with the store, setting up at fairs in the Hudson Valley and near Salem, Massachusetts, where Vigliotte grew up and still has family.

“It’s a great way to start the business, to engage with people, to get them to know who we are and see our vibe,” Parnell said.

Easier to sell on wheels

Mobile bookstores are “a great way for people to test markets, to open without overhead, especially for BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] individuals who face some of the systemic racism in banking in regards to raising capital,” Hill said.

Stephanie Moon, a book marketing strategist and consultant based in San Francisco, made a similar point.

To open a brick-and-mortar requires purchasing a large amount of stock, she said. “That’s a lot of money for a small business owner.”

Building The Wandering Page trailer and stocking it with inventory cost around $17,000, and startup costs for Virgo Rising were around $25,000, the store owners said. 

To launch a brick-and-mortar bookstore on Long Island would require finding a retail space to lease, which cost on average $33 per square foot in 2023, according to commercial real estate firm Matthews, which has an office in Manhattan.

Stocking a physical bookstore can cost between $10,000 and $200,000, according to QT Business Solutions, and operational costs besides rent include inventory management software, utilities, insurance, employee wages, marketing and point-of-sale systems.

Meanwhile, a mobile bookstore can “meet “the customer where they’re at,” Moon added — “the playground, at the fair, at whatever other event.” 

Virgo Rising and The Wandering Page both travel to festivals, book clubs and events around Long Island. Both also frequently collaborate with other small business owners. The Wandering Page, for example, recently set up at Buzz’d Express Coffee in Bellmore, and Virgo Rising is planning a fall festival in November with mobile bar The Golden Pour.

While independent book sellers have flourished around the country in recent years, including on Long Island, they are not exempt from the challenges facing other small businesses in the current economy. They, too, face a spate of issues that include rising costs, labor shortages and tariffs, as well as book bans, Hill said. 

Independent bookstores however have seen "strong local support," bolstered by a renewed interest in reading and subsequent spike in spending on physical books largely fueled by a literary subculture on social media, according to an industry report published by IBISWorld in April.

Indie sellers have also managed to compete with lower prices offered by online and chain retailers by tailoring inventory to their local communities, the report said.

Bookstore revenue overall has grown at an average rate of 5.5% over the past five years, reaching an estimated value of $44 billion in 2025, according to IBISWorld.

Adapting to a changing economy

It can be challenging for all types of bookstores to adjust to increased expenses because book prices are fixed by publishers — meaning store owners can’t raise prices in response to market pressures, Hill said.

To get around this, booksellers experimented with different formats during the pandemic, testing ways to lower the barriers to entry for an industry known to be financially challenging, Hill said.

For instance, more small “mission-focused” bookstores have been opening with a focus on a specific genre or political stance, she said.

Linda Radke, founder of literary resource Story Monsters Ink, based in Arizona, also highlighted an increased interest among consumers in buying physical books. People are “hungry” to have one “in hand,” she said.

And, by opening a store on wheels, vendors make their businesses “portable,” she added. “I think it could very well be the way of the future.”

Mobile libraries have been around for decades, visiting areas that might not have easy access to books, Moon said. “They get a lot of love and participation because people are so excited to see the books, right? I imagine that similarly for a mobile book business, it’s the same thing.”

Historically, bookmobiles have been widely used by libraries to improve accessibility to literature. There are at least two on Long Island, with one in Oceanside and another in Bellmore registered with the Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services.

“Everyone deserves the right to read,” said Cathy Zimmerman, executive director at Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services, a professional organization for library outreach. “It’s very important that all types of people of all communities have access to reading materials, whether it’s leisure reading [or] academic.”

The Wandering Page and Virgo Rising both frequently appear across Long Island and can be tracked using their Instagram accounts.

"It's so important that we keep [bookstores] alive. Without the written word, we have nothing, you know?" Parnell said.

Correction: Allison Hill's name was misspelled in an earlier version of this article.