Independent bookshops grow for sixth year as 1,118 now trade across UK and Ireland
Booksellers Association figures show 52 openings against 29 closures, with the strongest growth in market towns and the first new shops in a decade in parts of the north-east
The number of independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland has risen for a sixth consecutive year to 1,118, according to figures published by the Booksellers Association on Monday, with 52 shops opening in the 12 months to September against 29 closures.
The total remains well below the 1,894 recorded in 1995, before online retail and supermarket discounting halved the sector, but the association said the sustained recovery since a low of 867 in 2016 had surprised even its own members. Growth this year was strongest in market towns of between 10,000 and 40,000 people, and the association recorded the first new independent bookshops in a decade in Hartlepool, Redcar and Bishop Auckland.
The association’s managing director, Jennifer Oduya, said the new shops were “not the bookshops that closed”. The typical opening this year, she said, had 900 sq ft, two staff, a coffee machine, an events programme and a subscription scheme, and roughly a third of its sales came from something other than books. “The margin on a paperback has not changed. What has changed is that the shop is a place people want to be in, and the owners have worked out how to charge for that.”
Among them is Rosa Kettleby, 34, who opened Tyne Street Books in a former building society branch in Hartlepool in March with a bank loan, a council grant of £12,000 for an empty-shop scheme and, she said, “a spreadsheet my accountant described as brave”. The shop has 11 book groups, a fortnightly author event and a subscription service with 140 members paying £15 a month. “People told me nobody in Hartlepool reads,” she said. “They were wrong, and they were insulting, and I have the till receipts.”
The figures come amid a harder year for the chains. The largest high-street bookseller has closed nine branches since January, while supermarket book sales have fallen for three years as grocers cut shelf space. Publishers have also noted the shift: one major publisher said independents now accounted for 11% of its UK physical sales, up from 6% in 2019, and that it had doubled the size of its independent sales team.
The association warned that the picture was uneven. Closures were concentrated in cities, where rents had risen fastest, and in Northern Ireland, where the number of shops fell by two. It also said that 61% of independent owners reported taking no salary in at least one month of the past year, and that the business rates system continued to “tax shops for the crime of having a door”.
The organisation will publish a full regional breakdown in November.
Sign up to First Edition
Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters.
Privacy notice: newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads and content funded by outside parties.
