UK has fewer than 1000 indie bookshops
The UK has fewer than 1000 independent bookshops for the first time since records began, reports the Bookseller. According to figures from the UK Booksellers Association (BA), there are now 987 indies in the UK, down from 1028 in February 2013. The net decline of indies is 41, after 67 independent bookshops closed and 26 opened in 2013. According to the Bookseller, this decline is ‘shallower than in recent years (there was a net loss of 66 indies in 2012, 65 in 2011, and 93 in 2010)’ but ‘over a third of independent bookshops have been wiped out in the past nine years: in 2005, there were 1,535 in the UK’. On the Bookseller blog, BA chief executive Tim Godfray said: ‘Everyone should sit up and take notice of this. The book trade, the government and the general public need to realise that if we don’t take action now, the future of our bookshops—and therefore the health of the publishing industry and reading itself—is at risk.’
Category: International news
