Dear Booksellers,

Now that #SaveIndieBookstores has ended, ABA is gearing up for the next indie campaign. We’re excited to spread the word about Sourcebooks and Shelf Awareness’ #ReadIndieForward, a pay-it-forward movement to help independent bookstores.

This initiative is all kinds of good—the industry supporting one another, everyone sharing their love of books, readers buying books from the indies, and people connecting with the people they love.

Here are the details:

What
A pay-it-forward movement supporting independent bookstores by gifting books to friends and family.

Who
Everybody! Booksellers. Bookstores. ABA. Shelf Awareness. Sourcebooks. Other publishers. Authors. Readers. Customers. Everyone can help spread the word to #ReadIndieForward.

When
The next 8-10 weeks. (As shipping times are delayed right now, start early!)

How It Works
Step One:
An individual buys a book from their favorite independent bookstore and sends it to a loved one.

Step Two:
They post to social media with #ReadIndieForward, tagging the independent bookstore they bought the book from and the person they’re sending the book to.

Step Three:
They encourage the person who receives the book to #ReadIndieForward, too.

Step Four:
The person who receives the book posts on social media when they get the gift to say thank you. They can tag the sender and the indie bookstore.

Step Five:
The recipient can the start the whole cycle again: #ReadIndieForward.

How Bookstores Can Help
Spread the word. Turnkey, downloadable social media assets and ads are available at ReadIndieForward.com! You can personalize with your store’s logo or just upload the images to your social media or your website. You can even put your own spin on it and encourage customers to buy books that support local authors or diverse authors.

Why
Because #ReadIndieForward is exactly what we all need right now: something to connect us, and something to look forward to. 

ABA is grateful to Sourcebooks and Shelf Awareness, and all of the other publishers and authors who we know will get on this bandwagon. #SaveIndieBookstores raised over a million dollars. This time, let’s sell over a million books!

ABA is here for all of you. Please reach out if there is anything we can help with. We are an incredibly creative, resilient, supportive industry. We’ll get through this, together.

Best,
Allison

P.S. We didn’t want to wait to share this resource for booksellers beginning to reopen their stores: Here’s a handy list of tips for keeping your staff and customers safe, as well as a list of where to source related COVID-19 supplies.