While this month marks 20 years of Margie being at the helm, she has been in the book trade itself for much longer.
"It's 35 years now. I started at London Books in Akatarawa, then transferred to New Plymouth before moving to Paper Plus in Stratford."
Both her start at London Books and the start of her time with the Paper Plus group came about by being offered a job unexpectedly.
"I was working in Wellington at Kirkcaldie & Stains, and Rex and I had just moved to Akatarawa. One day the manager of London Books came up to me and said he'd heard I lived in Akatarawa. He offered me a job in his store in Upper Hutt which was closer to home for me."
She took the job, riding her pushbike to work everyday, and so her career in the book trade began.
When the company transferred her to New Plymouth Margie was headhunted again.
"I had only been there a couple of months when Bruce Hughson came in. He had the Paper Plus store in Hawera and offered me a job there."
Margie declined, saying she thought it would be unfair on her current employers so soon after she had transferred. Two years later though, Bruce came back.
"He said he was opening up a Paper Plus store in Stratford and offered me a job there."
This time Margie accepted.
"It was closer to our home in Toko and I like Stratford itself."
Margie worked for Bruce for four years, before buying the franchise off him.
"I could see it was growing really fast, so when the opportunity came I thought, well, what have I got to lose."
Margie jokes she has been close to losing her mind a few times since then, as she and the shop have navigated through the 2008 recession, the launch of e-readers and e-books and most recently, Covid-19.
"But you keep on going don't you? You have to adapt, change to suit the needs of the times, and just keep on going. We have fun, we have a laugh with the customers and keep on smiling."
Some things have changed a lot over her time in the book trade she says, such as an increase in celebrity authors of books from diet or cooking to fitness and memoir and a decrease in the number of New Zealand based publishers.
"Most books are coming from Australian warehouses now, so it takes longer for them to reach us, especially currently with the Covid-19 related reductions in flights."
Other things haven't changed though.
"We still have visiting authors come for book signings. We have had some great ones over the years, Paul Henry was one of the most poplar ones, and Chelsea Winter drew a big crowd too."
While famous authors bring the crowds in, Margie and her team are also passionate about supporting local authors.
"We are always happy to sell books on behalf for people when they have self published a book. We don't make any profit on those, we just take the money and pass it straight on to the author, but it's a way to support local writers."
Change is important when it comes to the shop layout, she says.
"You need to keep it fresh. We change the window displays a lot, themed for times of the year or events happening in town, as well as special ones for big new releases."
The range of gifts and toys is also constantly refreshed and changing, she says.
"We choose the items we sell carefully. The focus is on high quality, reasonably priced things."
With a Lotto counter, NZ Post and Kiwibank all also in store, Margie says people have plenty of reasons to call in.
"They come in, but it's up to us to make sure they feel welcome and want to spend time in the shop."
As Margie and her staff celebrate the store's 20th anniversary under her ownership, customers have some extra reasons to call in and spend time and money in store.
"We wanted to share the celebration with the customers, because it's thanks to them we are here. So we've run a few promotions over the month. The big one is the chance to win a share of $500 book tokens to spend in store which we will draw at the end of the month."
