Book Retailer of the Year

Proudly sponsored by Simon & Schuster

While book sales volumes softened in 2023, it was an excellent year for these seven retailers. The dominance of internet operators—including two, LoveReading and World of Books, that make this shortlist for the first time—reflects the accelerated migration to online spending during Covid, and leaves Waterstones and the National Trust as the only bricks-and-mortar booksellers.

This shortlist will be completed by two more retailers: the winners of the Independent Bookshop of the Year and Children’s Bookseller of the Year.

Winner

The Children's Bookshop

The Children's Bookshop in Muswell Hill adds this prestigious award to the trophy for Children's Bookseller of the Year. In the 11 years of the Book Retailer of the Year prize in its current format, it is only the second independent to win.

The shop, SO years young in 2024, is revered by generations of children, parents, grandparents and teachers. It does the fundamentals of bookselling brilliantly, with five in-store book clubs, free storytime sessions, sreat window displays and lively social media, and estimates that four in five books are handsold by owner Sanchita Basu De Sarkar and her exceptional team. It is a priority stop on signing tours for just about every big children's author and illustrator.

But it is the array of activity beyond the shop that really sets The Children's Bookshop apart from other book retailers. World Book Day encapsulated its energy, with 35 external events in five days and, when teacher strikes threatened to scupper school activity, it held a free party of its own for 400 children.

The emphasis is always on engaging not just keen readers but children of all abilities and backgrounds. That. and a growing awareness of the impact of the cost-of-living crisis. led the shop to give away hundreds of books to local schools, charities, shelters, prisons and refusee centres, and work with an autism centre to develop a learning library for children with additional needs.

Testimonials highlight the passion of The Children's Bookshop. "Its dedication to making sure that children have a joyful, inspirational experience of reading for fun is so impressive," said one. As the British Book Awards judges put it: "It's a simply amazing shop and team ... you just can't fault it."

Shortlist

Books2Door

Online retailer Books2Door is shortlisted for the third year in a row. Orders surged by a fifth in 2023 after it embraced two big trends in bookselling: TikTok, where it already averages £50,000 of sales a month and has struck partnerships and live streams with top BookTokkers; and book boxes, where it introduced new Box2Door subscription deals.

Bookshop.org

Bookshop.org’s value to independent booksellers during Covid was recognised by this award in 2022. Last year it passed the milestone of £3m profits earned for 600 indies, plus affiliates including the Women’s Prize. It stepped up promo work with social media influencers, added new strands to its children’s books offer and launched a charitable Read It Forward initiative with BookTrust.

LoveReading

Like Bookshop.org, recommendation and retail platform LoveReading has a social purpose that goes well beyond selling books. Its model of sending a quarter of buyers’ spend to schools of their choice is helping cash-strapped libraries to get more children reading for pleasure. It is also starting to support in-person events, including as partner of The Week’s book awards and festival.

Monwell

Monwell, the manager of online bookshops for newspapers, flies under the radar of most consumers—but not of trade publishers. It added the Times to the Guardian, Mail and Express in 2023, and is moving into subscription packages and non-book products. With literary review space under mounting pressure, Monwell has built an important bridge from media coverage to revenue.

National Trust

With 121 retail sites, and second-hand shops at many more of its properties, the National Trust is a bigger bookseller than some realise—and a particularly valuable one for its publishing partners, HarperCollins and Nosy Crow. Shortlisted at the British Book Awards for the first time since 2017, its team’s market knowledge, merchandising and promos are the equal of many pure book retailers.

Waterstones

A ninth shortlist place in 10 years shows the consistency of Waterstones since James Daunt took the helm in 2011. It seized good shares of many of 2023’s biggest sellers, especially Prince Harry’s Spare and G T Karber’s Murdle, while helping to break out many more new voices. Events revenue was the best ever and seven new openings showed its confidence for the future.

World of Books

WOB has sold second-hand books for two decades now, but consumers’ focus on online sales, sustainability and price has moved it up a gear. By helping individuals and charities to rehome used books it has saved millions from pulping, and its online experience increasingly matches bookshop browsing. An author-share scheme has started to address the tricky issue of compensating creators for secondary sales.