Watch Your Inbox for James Patterson Holiday Bookstore Bonus News

Over the past several months, more than 1,000 booksellers were nominated to receive a special bonus from author James Patterson as part of his Holiday Bookstore Bonus program. E-mails are going out next week to the winners of the bonuses; booksellers should watch their inboxes to see if they’ve won. A full list of winners will be published in an upcoming issue of Bookselling This Week.

Patterson’s annual bonus program grants independent bookstore employees a bit of extra money for the holiday season. Patterson is contributing $250,000 to the program this year and partnering with the American Booksellers Association for the fifth time to distribute the bonuses to individual booksellers.

Customers, booksellers, publishing industry colleagues, and others were invited to nominate a bookseller by answering the grant application’s one question: “Why does this bookseller deserve a holiday bonus?”

In 2017, Patterson donated a record $350,000 to bookstore employees; in 2016, $250,000 to 149 independent bookstore employees across the country; and in 2015, $250,000 to 87 recipients. In 2014, he awarded $1 million in grants to 178 independent bookstores. Over the past decade, Patterson has also given away more than a million books to students all over the United States and visited hundreds of schools to advocate for youth literacy.