Independent Bookstore Day took place Saturday, April 24, with 749 stores participating, covering all 50 states. The celebration, which is organized by the American Booksellers Association, is a successful marketing campaign for indie stores; this year there were more than 400,000 tweets and nearly 15,000 Instagram posts referencing @BookstoreDay and #IndieBookstoreDay throughout April. Almost 40,000 IBD-exclusive items were ordered and distributed by Ingram. Libro.fm offered a free digital audiobook to anyone who spent more than $15 on the day and tracked sales accordingly. Based on its receipts, Libro.fm said more than $260,000 was spent at stores on print books or other merchandise (in-store and online) by a total of 5,300 customers. The ABA’s IndieCommerce platform saw almost 128,000 visitors on the day, up from almost 95,000 last year (when IBD took place in August rather than April). Here are some highlights of the day, in pictures.
Mark Haber, operations manager at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, is ready for customers.
From l.: Author Alia Volz, San Francisco Chronicle reporters Heather Knight and Peter Hartlaub, and Pete Mulvihill celebrate at Green Apple Books in San Francisco.
Former president Barack Obama (above) released an IBD video of him interacting with half a dozen indie booksellers, including Bradley Graham (below), co-owner of Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.
Zenith Bookstore co-owner Angel Dobrow welcomes customers with store-branded cupcakes and raffle tickets. Temperatures in Duluth, Minn., dipped into the 30s on IBD, but customers showed up.
BrocheAroe Fabian, owner of River Dog Book Co., delivers online orders to customers in her community in the Lake Country area of Wisconsin.
Dog Eared Books co-owner Amanda Lepper points to the illustration of her Ames, Iowa, indie on the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association’s new IBD road map, which included all 180 MIBA store locations.
