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A former publisher has opened her own independent bookshop in the west Lothian region of Scotland. Inkspot and Silverleaf in Bo'Ness opened on Saturday. Its owner, Karen Millar, described its range of 4,000 titles as mixing "a quirky range with bestsellers". "I've tried to go for the popular titles as well as those books that are on the outskirts of different genres," she said.
Millar worked in marketing for both Taylor & Francis and Elsevier as well as in tourism before she opened the shop. She said that she felt the shop married her love of books with tourism. "I think it brings everything together into a destination store," she said. "It's something I always wanted to do."
Bo'Ness is a commuter town with a population of around 15,000 people. Millar said that the town has been growing in recent years with a number of housing developments planned for the next five years. "It will take a year or so for them to take off but hopefully we will be well placed to reap the benefits," she said.
The move could be part of a growing trend: earlier this month, Paul Bethel, previously bookshop sales manager at self-help legal publisher Lawpack Publishing, opened an independent bookshop in Bexhill-On-Sea, east Sussex.