In 2009, two bookshops a week were closing in the UK and the days of physical books seemed numbered. Now, indie stores are booming. What explains the turnaround – and can it be sustained?When Sarah Mullen was asked to set up a children’s book festival in a leafy suburb of Birmingham in 2012, she couldn’t find an independent bookseller to run the bookstall. “So we all rolled up our sleeves and did it ourselves,” she says. Pregnant with her third child, she had recently given up her job as a solicitor to work for the Bournville Village Trust. Mullen’s task was to set up the Bournville BookFest, which ran for 10 years before being brought to a halt by the Covid pandemic. But far from accepting defeat, she rolled up her sleeves once again and “pivoted the whole thing into a bookshop”. Two years on, the Bookshop on the Green is thriving – a living rebuttal to the once widely held idea that the digital era meant certain death for the neighbourhood bookstore.When I visit early on a Friday morning, a turquoise vintage Smith Corona typewriter holds centre stage in the Bookshop on the Green. Beside it stands Bradley Taylor, a poet whose job is to write poems on demand for anyone who asks. He has composed a lot of Batman and football poems for the children who pile in on Saturdays, he says, before sitting down to tap one out for me about the joy of bookshops. In the multitasking tradition of small retailers, Taylor also works in the shop. He made his cosplay debut last month as the... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-07-27 09:00:32 UTC ]
Chinese children’s publishers are creating original works, quality translations, and tweaking their programs to meet rapid market changes. (Sponsored) Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-03-21 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Chinese children’s publishers are creating original works, quality translations, and tweaking their programs to meet rapid market changes. (Sponsored) Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-03-21 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Growing consumer caution and uncertainty surrounding federal government support for education resulted in results falling below expectations at the children’s book publisher’s last quarter. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-03-21 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Barbara Marcus, one of the most prominent and influential figures in children’s book publishing for decades, will step down as president and publisher of Random House Children’s Books on May 1. She will be succeeded by Mallory Loehr, currently EVP and publisher of the Random House Books for... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-03-20 04:00:00 UTC ]
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During Bologna Children's Book Fair, IBBY's annual International Children's Book Day will be observed, this year sponsored by the Netherlands. The post At Bologna: IBBY’s International Children’s Book Day appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2025-03-19 23:32:04 UTC ]
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Estonia will serve as Guest of Honor at the 2025 Bologna Children’s Book Fair, marking the Baltic nation’s first time in this prominent role at the world’s largest children’s publishing event. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-03-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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The Bologna Children’s Book Fair, scheduled from March 31 to April 3, will once again bring the book world to Italy as it continues to grow beyond its traditional remit focused on children’s books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-03-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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His memoir “Growing Up” depicted her hometown “like a shining city on a hill.” Other authors who mean a lot to the musician (and now childrens’ book writer): Kevyn Aucoin and Hilary Mantel. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-03-13 09:00:09 UTC ]
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Spend any time scanning a list of banned books and you’ll find some head-scratchers: picture books challenged for including seemingly gay characters in the background, or describing a difficult moment in history, or revealing a naked goblin butt. Among the most banned picture books of the last... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-03-10 08:58:37 UTC ]
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A Caldecott Medal winner, he turned childhood memories of fleeing the Nazis in Poland into magical stories. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-03-07 19:00:38 UTC ]
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Matthew Teller, whose books include Nine Quarters of Jerusalem, said the society’s response to the event which saw two leading booksellers detained was ‘an abject failure’A writer has left the Society of Authors (SoA) in protest after the UK’s largest writers’ body made a statement on a recent... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-02-20 17:34:09 UTC ]
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Children’s books fall into six main categories based on age groups and format: board books (ages 0-3), picture books (3-8), ... Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-02-20 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Bologna's rights-business structure is evolving along with creative industries' growing engagement with book publishing. The post Bologna Children’s Book Fair’s Evolving Rights Hubs appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2025-02-15 01:29:36 UTC ]
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Regular bookstores might be dying—but bookstores dedicated to romance novels are thriving thanks to TikTok and a desire for third places. Throughout Harvard Square, there are many bookshop brimming with the latest literary fiction and intellectual memoirs, patronized by scholarly types. But in... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2025-02-13 10:30:00 UTC ]
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Industry organizations and publishers are condemning the detention of two Palestinian booksellers by Israeli police, who raided the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem on February 9, seizing books that they alleged incited terrorism. The booksellers were confined to house arrest this morning. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-02-11 05:00:00 UTC ]
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As of this morning, you can now easily buy ebooks from your local indie bookstore. Thanks to Bookshop.org, the reigning David to Am*zon’s Goliath. As Wired reports, a new platform on the site will now sell ebooks directly to customers. Bookshop users can buy and read titles via a handy-dandy... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-01-28 14:35:29 UTC ]
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Some of the most impactful books out there are children’s books. They’re often our first experiences with narratives and are ... Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-01-16 12:00:00 UTC ]
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