A week after holding its annual meeting and community forum, the American Booksellers Association has released its annual report. The contents of the report are usually summarized by ABA CEO Allison Hill during the meeting, but she had been absent due to a family emergency.
In a letter introducing the report, Hill emphasized that ABA membership had grown by 11% this past year, from 2,178 companies with 2,593 locations in 2023 to 2,433 companies with 2,844 locations in 2024. Approximately 200 indie bookstores opened in 2023, including 230 storefronts and 34 pop-ups, with just over 50 BIPOC-owned, including 28 Black-owned stores. In contrast, 95 bookstores closed in 2023.
Hill noted that the ABA takes a two-pronged approach to serving its membership, focusing on education, through its Institutes and at the regional trade shows, and on advocacy. “Some of the most important advocacy work ABA conducted in 2023 was in the fight against banned books and for free expression,” she wrote, noting that the ABA had lobbied against three dozen censorship and free speech bills, including Texas HB 900 and Arkansas Act 372, both of which were blocked by judges at least in part last year.
The annual report also noted the ABA’s motion to intervene, filed last month, in the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust suit against Amazon. Thursday’s issue of the ABA newsletter Bookselling This Week reported that both the FTC and Amazon filed briefs in opposition to the ABA’s motion, with the FTC stating that the ABA “may well have legitimate claims” against Amazon, but that “its claims are different from those in this case.”
The organization's e-commerce platform, IndieCommerce, was also an important issue for the ABA this past year, the report noted, as the organization continues to push its member stores with IndieCommerce sites onto the new IndieCommerce 2.0 platform. “A top priority for 2024 is to cross the finish line and migrate all the stores,” Hill wrote. The ABA board, which has spent $3.3 million over the last several years to upgrade the platform, voted last week to allocate another $1.1 million to accelerate the migration process. According to the annual report, IndieCommerce traffic was up 43% in 2023 over 2019, before the onset of the pandemic, but declined 13% in 2023 compared to 2022. The IndieCommerce sales conversion rate was 21% higher in 2023 than it was in 2019.
Noting in her letter that ABA personnel have visited more than 150 bookstore members this past year to discuss their needs and concerns, Hill praised the stores for their “unique magic” and the passion for, and commitment to, both serving their communities and championing books and literacy. “This is what makes independent bookstores special and important,” she wrote in conclusion.
