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Publishers are creating exclusive products, including an original essay by Julian Barnes, for Independent Booksellers Week 2012 (30th June to 7th July).
The new IBW Collectibles range of special products will be available only to independent booksellers for the length of IBW. A total of 270 bookshops have thus far registered for the event.
Hodder is producing a special limited deluxe edition of Gold by Chris Cleave which will be signed and numbered by the author, and will feature a slipcase, head and tail bands, a ribbon marker and different end papers from the main edition. Random House has commissioned an essay by Man Booker-winner Julian Barnes, "A Life With Books", which will be published in pamphlet form and supplied exclusively to indies for the week. In it, Barnes writes about his early awareness of books and his obsessive book-collecting.
Among independent publishers, Canongate is offering a three-month exclusive deal to indie booksellers on the paperback edition of Apricot Jam and Other Stories by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, with Sort of Books offering a special hardback edition of Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart at £9.99. Profile is issuing a limited deluxe edition of Just My Type by Simon Garfield. Faber is offering the Faber Poetry Diary exclusively for indie booksellers for two months from the beginning of IBW.
Walker Books is offering a Where's Wally? treasure hunt which indies can run locally during IBW, with other publishers offering signed copies of hardbacks, including Orion offering Michael Palin's The Truth, Anthony Beevor's The Second World War, and Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce. Orion is also offering some promotions to indies for IBW, including a three-for-two on children's summer reading. Little, Brown is offering signed copies of Katherine McMahon's This Is How It Ends, and Macmillan is offering indies a gift plush box set of What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson.
Authors including Jake Arnott, Lindsey Davis, Lisa Jewell, Gervase Phinn and Francesca Kay have also agreed to take part in events.
Chris Cleave is also offering himself as a prize to a reading group in the 2012 National Reading Group Day competition, held on 30th June.
Nic Bottomley, BA council member and owner of Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, called the Barnes essay "the very best kind of support for indies and IBW that publishers can give. Just what some of us had in mind when first pointing to the example of Independent Record Store Day. Unique content, attractive no doubt, great subject matter, slim, affordable, clearly capable of generating PR and bringing people into our shops."
BA head of membership services Meryl Halls said: "This is just the start of what promises to be another great promotional week. We are absolutely delighted with the support we have had from publishers, authors and booksellers alike and we look forward to seeing a whole host of exciting events and promotions taking place across the country."