Bookselling still not 'particularly diverse' say trade figures, as New Futures project launches

Bookselling is still “not particularly diverse” say trade figures as a scheme, the New Futures programme, launches to help entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities start bookshops.

Speaking at an online panel yesterday (8th November) for the programme jointly launched by Bookshop.org and the Booksellers Association (BA) to help entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities across the UK launch their own bookshops, BA m.d Meryl Halls (pictured) stressed the need for bookshops to serve every community.  

“Bookshops are placemakers, they’re tastemakers, they’re at the heart of their communities,” she said. The project will help support people from underrepresented backgrounds build a business plan for a bookshop. They will undergo a shortlisting, mentoring and judging process, and the selected winner or winners will receive hands-on support from industry partners in retail, technology and the book trade—including the BA, Gardners, The Bookseller and Midas PR. 

“We want to help new booksellers who may have dipped their toe in the water on Bookshop.org online to actually enter the fray on the high street," said Halls.  

Aspiring businesses that apply to the New Futures scheme will be judged by author Nikesh Shukla, founder of Dialogue Books Sharmaine Lovegrove, HarperCollins talent and audience development manager Nancy Adimora and The Bookseller editor Philip Jones, along with Fleur Sinclair, owner and bookseller at Sevenoaks Bookshop, and Sharmadean Reid, founder and c.e.o. of marketplace app Beautystack and media platform The Stack World. 

Adimora said that retail is crucial to audience development in her role at HarperCollins. She said the new scheme “felt like the perfect marriage between what we’re doing as publishers and how we can actually plug that gap as it relates to retail”. 

Nicole Vanderbilt, m.d. of Bookshop.org, said despite being an online platform, its mission remains to “support independent physical bookshops” because the team "believe[s] deeply in the power of that place that they hold in their communities”. She said the New Futures programme looks to the US “insofar as it is a bit more diverse” and aims to help people convening their communities and having conversations about books to “take that next step”. She said starting as an affiliate on Bookshop.org would help aspiring bookstore owners to gain confidence and “press books into people’s virtual hands”. 

Details on the application process, along with further information about the New Futures programme, can be found online. Queries should be directed to uk.support@bookshop.org. 

The deadline for entries is 23.59 p.m. on Friday (12th November), with a shortlist to be announced on 21st January 2022.