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Booksellers Association managing director Meryl Halls says she is "enormously proud" of what booksellers have achieved this year but has raised concerns about "another unsettling stretch" with the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, concerns about inflation and continued issues with the global supply chain.
Halls' comments came in her annual letter to the trade after another difficult year responding to the coronavirus pandemic, with the new Omicron variant "wreaking uncertainty and upending plans" for booksellers "who were hoping for a return to a more traditional sales pattern than we experienced in 2020, but who have instead had another late switchback ride these last weeks".
However, she reports booksellers have "absorbed the punches they have not been able to feint, and many have reported solid, if slightly subdued, sales this December" adding: "Many have reported benign panic-buying of sorts, some have talked of ‘a last hurrah’ atmosphere in their shops. After a solid summer trading period, though, it’s sobering that we’ve ended the year with another unsettling stretch."
She wrote: "I remain enormously proud of what booksellers have achieved, and the team at the BA are always alert to the challenges our members have faced throughout the pandemic, working with the public on the frontline of retail, selling books to those who want them, and persuading those who don’t know that they want to try something new.
"They have built on their crisis management wins of 2020, very often – consolidating their online bookselling; reinventing and altering their online events activities; taking on new staff, sometimes expanding their bookshops, or opening new ones (52 new bookshops opening in 2020; 54 in 2021, which is remarkable and rather wonderful). Booksellers have continued to build relationships with authors and publishers locally and nationally, and nurtured their local partnerships and relationships, enhancing their high streets in the process."
She pointed to the upcoming "Booksellers As Place-Makers" report, which the BA commissioned from the Institute of Place Management at Manchester Metropolitan University and will "illustrate the contribution booksellers make to their communities".
However, Halls' Christmas message this year was quite sobering, noting "more challenges" are coming in the future, many of which will be shared by publishing partners. "There seems no question that inflation is imminent, which will impact on book pricing — and that the disruption to supply chains could continue to have knock on effects well into next year. We want to pull together with our suppliers and partners whenever possible, and we will be surveying our members in our Christmas trading survey about their relationships with their suppliers, the better to represent booksellers’ concerns."
Nevertheless, she insisted there were still "a number of reasons to be optimistic about the bookselling landscape post-pandemic" citing the return of public enthusiasm for local bookshops since their reopening in the spring. "Nationwide events for Independent Bookshop Week and Bookshop Day demonstrated that readers were returning to bookshops, eager for the in-person experience of being recommended titles by a bookseller," she said.
Looking ahead to 2022, she said the BA hopes for "more certainty and stability for bookshops" and will continue "to support booksellers as they keep rebuilding, providing them with the resources and assistance they need to connect with readers and champion new books".
"We will be picking up crucial work on sustainability and on representation in bookselling, creating a professional development platform for our members, as well as continuing our investment in trade infrastructure with Batch and Batchline."
She concluded: "As ever, we will continue to encourage the public to choose bookshops, and urge the wider books industry to keep booksellers in the front of their mind as they plan for the coming year. Bookshops have proven throughout the pandemic that they are an essential aspect of the publishing ecosystem, able to sell books even during a global catastrophe, and we all need to support their work if we want to see them continue to thrive in the years to come."