Indies celebrate 'record-breaking' sales and high footfall on Bookshop Day

Booksellers across the UK celebrated another successful Bookshop Day on Saturday (9th October), with "record-breaking" sales and high footfall inspiring confidence in the lead up to Christmas trading. 

Some stores installed 3D displays to launch books and attract customers, while others saw local authors perusing their shelves. 

In York, Lali Hewitson, owner of science fiction, fantasy and LGBTQIA specialist indie The Portal Bookshop, said: "It was a record breaker for me; the busiest day I've ever had in the physical shop, beating my previous record by half as much again."

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (Swoon Reads) and One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (Griffin) were among titles that sold the best for the shop. 

"Everyone seemed to be having lots of fun, even with queues down both sides of the shop. It was one of York's busiest days of the year, too, so it was really nice that all those visitors were supporting independents while checking out the city."

Elsewhere, booksellers embraced displays to celebrate the event. In Brighton, the Book Nook shattered expectations with a massive Octopus structure — its gigantic, life-like tentacles appearing to rise up out of the floor and to smash through the window. The installation also marked the launch of Daughter of the Deep by author Rick Riordan (Puffin), which was published on 5th October.

In Wednesbury, West Midlands, co-owner of the brand new Blue Sheep Books Sorina Marinescu was concerned about footfall, as the town hasn't had an independent bookshop for 11 years.  "We saw 72 people browse our small shop and 53 customers make purchases with an average spend of £14.53," she said. "Customers travelled from as far as central Birmingham to check us out and being an independent is what attracted them. We did particularly well with children’s books selling out of two titles  - Roar Gigantosaurus Roar! (Templar) and Magic Painting Halloween (Usborne) - adult fiction selling out Stephen King's IT (Hodder) and adult non-fiction selling out of The First Casualty (Welbeck).

"The two most rewarding parts of the day were interacting with local English teachers who were really happy to see us open and the sheer number of local Wednesbury residents who said ‘this is just what our town needed’. As a community bookshop this is exactly what we want as we are here to help our brilliant adopted home town prosper."

In London, Islington's book and wine shop BookBar saw one of its busiest days since opening, reflected in sales and footfall. "Bookshop Day was a huge success," founder Chrissy Ryan told The Bookseller. "The shop was packed all day, and we took a higher proportion of book sales, compared to coffee and wine sales, than usual, although we served plenty of wine and coffee all day and well into the evening too."

"We welcomed Melanie Sykes and Simon Savidge (pictured, below left) as guest booksellers and offered 10% off books to book club members, driving customers to sign up for our book club membership and rewarding current members. It was certainly the best day we've had since the Sally Rooney Beautiful World Where Are You (Faber) publication, which saw us with queues down the street from 7am and making international headlines, so we're thrilled with the response to Bookshop Day. It felt really festive all day, as strangers connected with one another over books, discussing their purchases and recommending books to one another. It was amazing to see BookBar in action as it was created to be: bringing people together through books."

Hazel Broadfoot, owner of Village Books in Dulwich, said trade was level with last year’s Bookshop Day. She added this was "very pleasing as there was such a groundswell of support for us last year following the reopening in June, post lockdown. Brilliant to see a really wide range of titles sold – with a very healthy proportion of backlist, as well as the newer titles."

Richard Drake, owner of Drake The Bookshop in Stockton-on-Tees, celebrated the new children's shop's sixth birthday on Saturday in addition to the event, and saw an increase in footfall. "The book industry continues to be amazing and Bookshop Day once again showed just how amazing booksellers and book buyers are," he said. "New customers, old customers and even new found local authors finding their books on our shelves, [including] Deborah O'Connor, meaning we now have signed copies on our shelves. We had a visit from our local MP, Alex Cunningham and generally the day was a festival from start to finish. Cake, fizz, posh outfits and book talk galore. What a great way to start the run up to the Christmas season."

Speaking about trading for the autumn period, Jess Allan, manager and buyer at Queen's Park Books, said the team has seen "promising footfall" in the run up to the busiest period. "We are absolutely stocked with books already so it's going to be an interesting week. Whatever else you say about this year there has been no shortage of amazing titles - I'm confident we are going to have a phenomenal Christmas season."

Commenting on the event, Meryl Halls, m.d. of the Booksellers Association, said: “The creativity and enthusiasm of booksellers is simply awe-inspiring, and it’s been brilliant to see them share that energy and passion with their local communities in person this Bookshop Day, particularly after such a challenging year. We’ve had author events in store, celebrity booksellers behind the tills, children’s story times, poetry slams, treasure hunts, and of course the epic Edinburgh billboard takeover featuring Dapo Adeola’s stunning limited-edition Books Are My Bag tote bag design.

"Bookshop Day is such a wonderful celebration of bookshops big and small, doing what they do best, and I’d like to congratulate everyone for really pulling out the stops."

Nicole Vanderbilt, m.d. of indie-focused online retailer Bookshop.org UK, said: "It was wonderful to see so many people celebrating and enjoying the magic of indie bookshops in person. That is precisely what we want readers to do. And for those who couldn't make it into their local, or who don't have a bookshop locally, we were delighted they could join in online. We supported indie bookshops by offering free shipping on all orders on our site, and the significant jump we saw in sales will add to what bookshops earned in-store."