A bookstore in Alabama keeps getting covered in the national news. Even The New Yorker recently sent a reporter to visit The Alabama Booksmith, a small, almost windowless business on a dead-end street in Birmingham.

From the outside, it looks like an old clapboard home. But this nondescript store has also gotten noticed by NPR, USA Today, Good Morning America, and a dozen other media outlets. You might think that it was some special tourist destination—and maybe it is.

In a time when many indie bookstores struggle to survive, The Alabama Booksmith is flourishing. But it has a crazy strategy that draws customers, who bypass stores in their own cities to purchase from a distant retailer.

Here’s the secret: Every book in the store is signed by the author.