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Indie bookshops in good health as record number of first-timers vie for Nibbie
Thirteen first-time Independent Bookshop of the Year nominees will contest the regional and country Nibbies this year, on the back of indie retail numbers hitting a 10-year high.
Five former overall winners and a record 13 first-time nominees have been named on the regional and country shortlists for the Independent Bookshop of the Year (IBOTY) Award at the British Book Awards 2023.
Fifty-nine shortlistees in total are in contention for the Nibbie, which is sponsored by Gardners and supported by the Booksellers Association (BA). The stores will now compete to grab their region and country top spots—to be announced on 16th March—with those winners vying for the UK and Ireland-wide prize, which will be revealed at the British Book Awards ceremony on 15th May.
The baker’s dozen of first-time nominees includes Queer Lit, the former online-only LGBTQ+ specialist which opened its bricks-and-mortar store in Manchester’s Northern Quarter in 2021; the Ross and Cromarty stalwart The Ullapool Bookshop, whose manager Katharine Douglas was named on The Bookseller’s Bookshop Heroes list in 2022; Malton’s Kemps General Store & Books, launched in 2017 by Liz Kemp and based on the shop her parents used to run; Swindon’s Bert’s Books, launched by long-time W H Smith marketer Alex Call in 2019; and David’s Bookshop, the 60-year-old Letchworth Garden City institution which in 2020 was bought by staff and put into an employee ownership trust.
The newcomers square off against some seasoned Nibbie regulars, including a quintet of past overall winners: Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, Linghams Booksellers in Hesswall, St Boswells’ The Mainstreet Trading Company, Five Leaves Books of Nottingham and Crickhowell shop Book-ish. Additionally, six of last year’s regional and country winners—Bookbugs & Dragon Tales, Burley Fisher Books, Wonderland Bookshop, Forum Books, The Edinburgh Bookshop and Book-ish—will attempt to reclaim their crowns.
The 2023 IBOTY shortlists come just weeks after the BA announced that there was yet another year of growth for indie bookshops. There were 1,072 indies in the UK and Ireland by the end of 2022, a net increase of 45 on the previous year, representing a 10-year high.
If there is one thing that has been driven home by these shortlists, it is that independent bookshops have been one of the winners of the pandemic. Indies have come through what could have been a hugely devastating time for the sector in their strongest position in decades—Tom Tivnan, The Bookseller managing editor and chair of the IBOTY judges
Reflecting that recent surge in numbers, just over half (30) of the shortlistees have been in business for five years or fewer; a dozen have opened since the beginning of the pandemic. But there are venerable concerns, too: 16 have traded for more than 20 years, seven for over 50 and one more than a century (Grasmere’s Sam Read Bookseller, established in 1887).
Tom Tivnan, The Bookseller managing editor and chair of the IBOTY judges, said: “If there is one thing that has been driven home by these shortlists, it is that independent bookshops have been one of the winners of the pandemic. Indies have come through what could have been a hugely devastating time for the sector in their strongest position in decades. We have seen this generally in the increased numbers of indies throughout the UK and Ireland. But we also see it more specifically in these shortlists with the shops’ innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity—all done in service of local communities. We have entered a new golden age for independent bookshops.”
Wales has a record eight shortlistees, bolstered by first-time nominees Shelf Life Books & Zines and Berwyn Books. Cardiff radical bookstore Shelf Life was launched by Rosie Smith in 2019 as a pop-up inside a beer and record shop, before finding its permanent space a year later
Outside London—which is its own region—Bristol and Brighton and Hove can lay claim to the biggest indie bookshop centres, with both cities having three contenders. The trio of Bristol shortlistees—Storysmith, Max Minerva’s Bookshop and bookhaus—are all relative newcomers, with the first two opening their doors in 2018, while bookhaus launched in 2021. This is the fourth consecutive year Storysmith has been on the South-West England shortlist. Bookhaus is owned by Jayne Pascoe and Kevin Ramage, whose The Watermill in Aberfeldy won the overall IBOTY in 2008.
Hove’s The Book Nook and City Books are near-neighbours, with just a five-minute walk separating the two. The former should be well-known to Nibbie watchers, as The Book Nook is a three-time winner of Children’s Bookseller of the Year, most recently in 2018. However, Brighton’s other contender might not be in the city for long. Afrori Books, the specialist in books by Black authors, was launched as an online concern in 2020 in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, with a physical store opening a year later. In January 2023, owner Carolyn Bain announced the shop may have to quit Brighton after rent and operating costs would quadruple this year. The shop is currently in the midst of a crowdfunding campaign to support a move to new premises.
Wales has a record eight shortlistees, bolstered by first-time nominees Shelf Life Books & Zines and Berwyn Books. Cardiff radical bookstore Shelf Life was launched by Rosie Smith in 2019 as a pop-up inside a beer and record shop, before finding its permanent space a year later. Berwyn, meanwhile, rose from the ashes in early 2022 with a new shop opening in the north-east Wales village of Mynydd Isa following a fire in November 2021 which destroyed its former premises in nearby Buckley.
