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Ramsgate bookseller Sapphire Bates has gone viral with a tweet asking users to support Book Bodega, the indie bookshop that she opened the doors to in June 2022. On Saturday 25th February, Bates posted a picture of an empty shop with the hashtag #BookTwitter. She asked users to help her raise the £800 she needed to pay the bills by purchasing recommended titles from the shop’s page on Bookshop.org.
Within two days, her post had racked up 5.7 million views, and was retweeted by thousands of users. Celebrities including comedian Sue Perkins and crime writer Ian Rankin were among those urging readers to support Book Bodega.
Mark Thornton, UK bookshop partnership manager at Bookshop.org, which Book Bodega also sells through, said: “The amount of traction that that Tweet has got, the number of retweets, the number of big authors and celebrities that have come on-board and helped get it out there, is pretty extraordinary. It’s captured something of the public mood: that small businesses need help.”
Based in the seaside town of Ramsgate, the indie bookshop has had a difficult few months as Bates struggled with rising energy costs and tightening budgets, which have affected sales. She told The Bookseller that the “rising cost of living has had a direct impact, that combined with lower footfall and customers also being impacted, and thus having less to spend”.
After a solid November where Bates and her co-founder Nick Turner were able to pay the bills, sales dropped in December. During the Christmas period, the Book Bodega founders also struggled with delayed and missing deliveries, which Bates said were affected by Royal Mail strikes that led to an increased demand on UPS deliveries.
Bates explained that she did not expect the Tweet to get a significant response, but knew she had to do something when she noticed that the shop was empty on a Saturday—a day that she expected customers to be flying in and out of its doors every hour. She also realised that for the first time, there would not be enough money to pay the bills this month.
Bates said: “We kind of managed to pay the bills every month, it’s just been quite tight. February was the first month where we realised that we are considerably short on what we need.”
Although Bates does not know for certain how many orders were placed yet, she is fairly confident that the £800 target has been exceeded in two days. Customers have also donated money towards vouchers for local charities and those who are living on the street, which Bates hopes will help the Ramsgate community.
Twitter users have also expressed their support for indies such as Book Bodega. Bates said that "so many people have shared really nice stories about how they love to shop in their independent bookshop, tagging them and spreading the love for indie bookshops, which is so nice because I don’t think we are alone in having a hard winter.”
The Booksellers Association (BA) statistics show the number of independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland has grown for the sixth consecutive year, and membership was at 1,072 at the end of 2022—the highest it has been in 10 years. Consumers also want to continue supporting indie bookshops despite tightening budgets. But many shop-owners have faced difficult months, reporting to The Bookseller that they are worried about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.