Booksellers Independent booksellers could join forces to compete with chains London’s Big Green Bookshop has received interest from more than 100 other indie retailers after floating the idea of union to negotiate better prices and exclusives with publishers ‘I suspect that there’d be quite a few publishers and authors who’d want to support this’ …Simon Key of the Big Green Bookshop. Photograph: Lewis Khan for the GuardianMore than 100 independent bookshops around the UK are attempting to join forces, in order to compete with powerful chains such as Waterstones and WH Smith and negotiate better prices and exclusive editions of bestselling titles. The idea of independent booksellers banding together to look for exclusive deals on a handful of major titles each year was proposed by Simon Key of Wood Green, London’s Big Green Bookshop earlier this month. “I hope it’ll work,” added the author, who has described independent bookshops as “the lantern bearers of civilisation” in the past. “As for the 5,000 copies of La Belle Sauvage signed for Waterstones, I also signed 5,000 bookplates exclusively for independent booksellers,” he added.

Source: The Guardian January 29, 2018 15:45 UTC