Battle of the Bookshops: We Want You!
If you follow us on Twitter, you probably already know that, earlier this month, it was Independent Booksellers Week, a campaign aimed at promoting and celebrating independent bookshops across the UK. We asked our Twitter followers to tell us their favourite independents, and among some we already knew about (like the gorgeous Grove bookshop in Ilkley), got tons of fascinating tip-offs about bookshops we’d never heard of before, including Reids in Keighley, Common Good Books in Minnesota, and The Old Book Shop in Wolverhampton.
And so, what with this wealth of wonderful independent bookshops that are out there, beloved by their loyal local customers but maybe not getting the attention they deserve from the wider world, we decided we wanted to know more.
So, whether you own or work in an independent bookshop, or just want to tell the world about why your local bookshop deserves love and attention from all and sundry, we want to hear from you. Maybe you became besotted with an independent bookshop whilst on holiday or other travels, and want to reminisce about why and how you feel in love with it. Whatever the circumstances, we want to hear more about the independent bookshops you think we should be shouting about.
We’ll be featuring the best independents across Britain and beyond in guest posts on here over the next few weeks. Once the series is all wrapped up, we’ll re-cap the contenders and put up a poll, so our ravishing readers can vote for their favourites, and the winner will get an award, an in-depth feature on the site, and any prizes we can rustle up as well.
If you’re interested in taking part and penning a guest post for us, all you need to do in the first instance is: email us by next Monday 5th July with a few details about your chosen independent bookshop; where it is, why it’s wonderful, and links to its website and other accounts like Facebook and Twitter (if it has them). If you’re not directly connected to the bookshop, we’ll also need a few details about you, including where you’d want us to link to if and when we use your suggestion. We’ll look through which bookshops have been suggested (to make sure we don’t end up with duplicates), and come back to you to ask you for more info. If you want to nominate a bookshop but don’t want to volunteer yourself for scribbling duties, then tell us in the comments, and we’ll try to make sure we include those suggestions too.
Let the battle commence!
(Image via Shadowgate’s Flickr photostream, of the beautiful Shakespeare and Co in Paris)
Post by Jane Bradley
I’ve always wanted to go to Scarthin Books: http://www.scarthinbooks.com/ so if someone wants to write about that and tell me what i’ve been missing…
and, aaah, Shakespeare and Co. Worth a trip to Paris in itself.
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