Publishers must support bookshops to ensure they survive potentially ‘brutal’ 2023, Halls warns 

Managing director of the Booksellers Association (BA) Meryl Halls has thanked publishers for their “ongoing support for the BA and bookselling” in an “unpredictable and sometimes unsettling” 2022 but called on them to be “commercially supportive of bookshops” and to invest practically and emotionally in the bookselling sector to ensure it survives what has the potential to be a "brutal" year in 2023.

Addressing publishers in her annual end-of-year letter, Halls said that despite resilient book sales, a continuing increase in the number of bookshops opening and a consequent influx of “new energy and verve” to the sector over the past year, “after the surreal boom time for book sales through the pandemic lockdowns and their aftermath, 2022 was always going to be a year of recalibration and consolidation in the UK and in Ireland”. However, she didn’t think “any of us could have foreseen the full extent of the combination of uncertainty, political upheaval and truly unsettling economic developments coming our way.”

“Bookselling has never been easy,” she said, “and despite the good news of the increase in the number of bookshops, I remain concerned about what 2023 might hold for high street bookselling.”

Halls continued: “While it’s heartening to see the EU start to crack down on Amazon’s egregious behaviour with its own Marketplace (an investigation the BA contributed to, as we have to our own CMA’s similar investigation), Amazon continues to twist markets out of shape, and obtain preferential treatment in too many places, and the BA will continue to advocate vocally – with you, our trade suppliers, as well as with government, with regulators, consumers and the media – to level the playing field for bookshops.”

She highlighted the “disproportionate contribution bookshops make to the success of authors and titles” and “how fragile the ecosystem of which our members are a key element can be”, saying that “to maintain that ecosystem, and ensure that high street bookselling survives a potentially exceptionally brutal year, we are calling on publishers and other suppliers to be commercially supportive, and to invest, practically and emotionally, in the bookselling sector.”

For Halls, relatively small investments, especially for larger publishers, “can make a disproportionately positive impact on the sector,” and therefore she urged publishers to “continue to think creatively with your teams about ways in which you can invest in, and support, the bookselling community.”

In conclusion, she said 2022 brought further proof of the resilience, inventiveness, charm and doggedness of booksellers: “Faced with adversity, they’ve adapted; faced with economic uncertainty, they’ve battened down the hatches and sold more books; faced with high street unease, they’ve engaged, collaborated and connected with networks and peers locally; faced with regulatory threats, they gave voice to their experience and expertise; faced with the opportunity to create moments of reader delight through BA campaigns, they embrace them and share the joy of bookshops with their customers.” 

“Your support as publishers is a key part of making all of these things happen, and to creating a bookselling community that is confident and speaking from a position of strength from within this industry,” she said.

“Booksellers are inspirational people, and it’s a privilege to work for and with them through the year; we’re proud to have served alongside them for another rollercoaster year, and we look forward to working with you, our most supportive publishing partners, to continue the expansion of bookselling and the number of books sold through bookshops during 2023 and into the future.”