Pistil Books & News opened in 1993 on Capitol Hill, an eclectic urban neighborhood in Seattle, and operated as a brick and mortar store for nearly eight years, selling used and new books in all categories with an inventory of around 25,000, as well as periodicals and zines. During this time we also hosted readings, art shows, participated in book fairs, and were known for our support of alternative publications and culture. We started selling books online around 1999.

In 2001 we lost our lease and became an online-only business, Pistil Books Online. We moved our inventory from our storefront into our newly renovated office/warehouse on the ground floor of our 1903 house, also in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. As an online store, we deal almost exclusively in used books with an inventory of around 14,000 and we sell on about ten bookselling sites, including our own website, www.pistilbooks.net. We carry books in all categories, mostly non-fiction, with an emphasis on art, architecture, vintage children's books, how-to, northwest, and a little bit of everything else.

In addition to Pistil Books owners Sean and Amy, we have two part-time staff: Sean’s brother, Troy, who handles all the packing and shipping, and Kam, our book photographer and music book cataloger, who also handles orders while we are away.

We chose the name Pistil Books because we liked the play of the word pistil, a female flower part, versus pistol, a gun. A homophone with two very different meanings. From the sound of the word, it’s unclear which pistil/pistol we are. As a part of a flower, pistil evokes the idea of growing, living, flowering… and in the case of books, flowering knowledge. A slogan for Pistil Books (it’s printed on our bookmarks) is “Seed your head.” We have used flowers as a theme for our business—our retail store had a stained glass sunflower window, as well as a colorful flower mosaic we made on the floor (it’s still there—though our old retail storefront is now a burrito joint). We now have flower mosaics around the exterior door of our office/warehouse, a lovely vintage three-dimensional scientific model of a pistil on a shelf above my desk, and a flower/bee/knowledge theme on our website.

We are proud members of the IOBA, Independent Online Booksellers Association.