Bookselling Research Network

Anna Muenchrath: Just Browsing: Time and the Online Bookstore
2025-03-28 14:00 - 15:30 (Europe/London)
Convenience and the saving of time are attractions of buying books online, particularly on Amazon, which advertises rapid delivery speeds at very low prices. Algorithms are designed to save time, making a database of books easily searchable, but they are also programmed to increase the time users spend looking at a particular page or scrolling through a list of results. Moreover, when we move from the web to the distribution warehouse, Amazon’s algorithms parcel out time to “pickers” who have to try to beat the clock (“make rate”) as they translate online clicks, communicated at the speed of light, into the work of navigating vast shelves in search of books and other items. Set against the backdrop of the pastoral metaphor of “browsing,” indicating a slow consumer behaviour historically linked to book buying, this talk considers the ubiquitous control of time in Amazon’s bookselling operation.

Nina Stavisky on European Bookselling Courses
2025-04-25 14:00 - 15:30
Time: Apr 25, 2025 02:00 PM London

Bookselling seems to be an innate profession, after all we learn to read at school and to be a bookseller you have to love reading, don’t you? Across Europe, a number of bookselling schools, whether public or private, apprenticeship or university-based, for initial or continuing training, provide high-quality training for future booksellers, department managers or company directors.What do they teach and how do they train the booksellers of tomorrow?

Nina Stavisky has been working in the book trade for over 20 years, as a bookseller, trainer, teacher, in the technical field and in booksellers’ associations. She is the general delegate of ALIRE, an association working on technique and technology in bookshops, and is also an associate lecturer at the University of Paris Nanterre and head of the bookselling section of the information and communication department, which trains students in three years to become booksellers.

ALIRE was founded in 1989, and represents independent booksellers, chains and pure-players (including Amazon, supermarkets…) in the French book trade.

Michael Robb–author of Shelf Life
2025-05-23 14:00 - 15:00
Shelf Life: A Journey Through the Past, Present & Future of Bookselling and Publishing in Britain

Time: May 23, 2025 02:00 PM London

The Author

Michael Robb has experienced first-hand the shifting tides of this well-loved industry over the past 40 years.

From successfully running an independent bookshop in Essex for two decades, to transitioning into the publishing domain, his broad network within the book trade gives him a unique insight into the world of the books.

Exactly the book I wish I had had in my hands when I was writing mine! It’s a simply written and straightforward account of the history of bookselling in Britain, and the development of British publishing, brought to life by the author’s obvious passion for the subject, his warm love of books and his appreciation of the value of reading for the human soul. Full of ideas for the future, and a wake-up call to all of us who worry about the future of our children, when public and school libraries are disappearing before our eyes and screens are ubiquitous. I also enjoyed the discussion of the impact of AI on the industry, which is clearly of concern if we value genuine creativity. Packed full of interesting facts, and interviews and insights from some of the leading players in the industry. – Sarah Harkness, author of Literature for the People: How the Pioneering Macmillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse

In Shelf Life, Michael Robb gives us 2,000 years of the history of publishing books, shot through with Robb’s own love of reading, before navigating the tempestuous present. We can’t know for sure the next chapter in the history of the book, but Michael Robb’s surging account – from William Caxton to the contemporary high street; from Wynkyn de Worde to the Net Book Agreement – can help us speculate better on the book’s possible futures. I loved reading Shelf Life. – Adam Smyth, Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, Oxford, and author of The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in 18 Remarkable Lives (2024)

Shai Feraro: Occult and New Age Spirituality Bookshops
2025-06-20 14:00 - 15:30
Studying Occult and New Age Spirituality Bookshops as Sites for the Production and Exchange of Rejected Knowledge in the UK, c. 1893 – c. 1993 Dr. Shai Feraro (University of Haifa)

This paper presents exploratory notes from my ongoing research project, which focuses on occult and New Age spirituality bookshops in Britain and aims to illuminate their function as hubs and arenas for the transference of knowledge and information within these respective milieus, c. 1893 – c.1993. Its time frame is dictated by the founding of Watkins Books – one of the first establishments in London to dedicate itself specifically to occult and esoteric literature – and by the rise of the Internet, which has become the chief arena for the exchange of relevant knowledge, thus eliminating the primacy and – in the case of the occult subcultures – sometimes even the very exclusivity of the bookshop.

I aim to show how these literary establishments were simultaneously dependent on and cultivated a large array of networks concerned with ‘rejected knowledge’. Following Webb (1976) and especially Hanegraaff (2012) we can define ‘rejected knowledge’ as a generative culture of epistemic claims, based on a fusion of heterodox religion and speculative science, which has been practiced against hegemonic religious and scientific institutions since at least the late Nineteenth Century.

This project is vital for understanding the proliferation of new and alternative religions in western societies and opens a new line of wider historiographical enquiry with the UK as a test case, answering longstanding questions regarding the material availability of ‘occult’ and ‘new age’ reading materials during the Twentieth Century and their impact on wider British – and Western – society.

My research focuses on the study of occult and New Age Spirituality bookshops in Britain between the late-19th and late-20th Centuries. I’m also interested in esoteric publishing and in the role of women in the British book trade during the same period. More broadly, I research alternative religions and spiritualities in North America and the UK during the 19th and 20th centuries. My 2020 book, Women and Gender Issues in British Paganism, 1945–1990, was published by Palgrave Macmillan, who also published two anthologies I co-edited – Contemporary Alternative Spiritualities in Israel (2016) and Magic and Witchery in the Modern West (2019).

BRN Conference 2025: Bookselling as Resistance
2025-09-11 08:00 - 2025-09-12 17:00
Conference in Münster, Germany, combined with the annual meeting of the Bookselling Research Network (BRN).

We are still accepting abstracts for the Bookselling as Resistance conference to be held at the University of Münster. The deadline for submission has been extended to September 29, 2024.

We’ve had some questions about the early deadline; as indicated below, we are applying for funding and need an indication of participation to complete the application. We anticipate that there will be another call later, but we are grateful to delegates who are able to submit something for consideration now.

Call for Papers

Abstracts are requested by September 15, 2024 (see below for how to submit)

Book historical work has been increasingly highlighting books – their publication, distribution and reception – in intersectional activist contexts, shining light on interconnections between community-building, politics and the book. In our conference, scheduled for September 2025 in Münster, Germany, we plan to hone in on bookselling as a practice and consider the ways in which resistance can be interpreted vis-à-vis bookselling and bookstores.

As Kimberley Kinder has shown, bookstores – and booksellers – play a central role in social activism and for “activist placemaking” (Kinder 2021). In the wake of the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States in 2016, independent bookstores received heightened media attention for offering readers and community members spaces to exchange ideas and organize, with the stores “taking on roles ranging from meeting place to political war room” (Bosman 2017). Adjacently, feminist bookstores experienced a resurgence after the 2016 US election (Kirch 2018). Doyle Highland has considered “how the material space of bookstores shapes social engagement […] and cultural values” (2023), and recent work by Dhingra (2024) and Srinivasan (forthcoming, 2025) puts pressure on these concepts from an Indian perspective. Internationally, independent bookselling per se has come to be understood as a mode of resistance against Amazon’s market dominance and destructive human and ecological (Caine 2021).

Beyond these examples, our conference invites delegates to explore the theme of bookselling – past and present – as resistance. We encourage papers that take transcultural, transnational and intersectional approaches. 20-minute papers could engage with issues such as:

Informal spaces of bookselling and alternative routes of circulation

Bookstores as community/gathering space

Mail-order book clubs or book subscription boxes

Books on the bookshelf and activist organizational practice; curation; banned book displays

Alternative bookstore business models (independent, volunteer-run, traveling, etc.)

Serving specific communities: bookselling for specific groups, communities, lifestyles; locations of bookselling

Bookselling of pirated copies and resistance to copyright/market norms

Booksellers, censorship, and legal battles

This is not an exhaustive list, and we welcome proposals for papers that engage the theme in creative ways.

We plan to apply for funding through the German Research Foundation, which would enable us to pay for delegates’ travel to Münster and accommodation during the conference. For this reason, abstracts are requested by September 15, 2024. Notification of preliminary acceptance and inclusion in the funding bid will be made by September 30, 2024. Please submit 400-word abstracts and short bios via the Indico platform: https://indico.uni-muenster.de/e/brn_2025.

Works Cited and Bibliography

Bosman, Julie. “Bookstores Stoke Trump Resistance With Action, Not Just Words.” The New York Times, February 15, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/bookstores-stoke-trump-resistance-with-action-not-just-words.html.

Caine, Danny. How to Protect Bookstores and Why: The Present and Future of Bookselling. Portland: Microcosm Publishing, 2023.

Caine, Danny. How to Resist Amazon & Why: The Fight for Local Economies, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future. Portland: Microcosm Publishing, 2021.

Farrell, Greg.On the Books: A Graphic Tale of Working Woes at NYC’s Strand Bookstore. Portland: Microcosm Publishing, 2014.

Garber, Jeremy. “Bookselling in the 21st Century: There Will Always Be Bookstores.” Literary Hub, November 9, 2016. https://lithub.com/bookselling-in-the-21st-century-there-will-always-be-bookstores/.

Hogan, Kristen. The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.

Kinder, Kimberley. The Radical Bookstore: Counterspace for Social Movements. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021.

Kirch, Claire. “Trump Presidency Reinvigorates Feminist Bookstores.” Publishers Weekly, March 09, 2018. Accessed July 24, 2024. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/76289-trump-presidency-reinvigorates-feminist-bookstores.html.

Noorda, Rachel, Corinna Norrick-Rühl, and Elizabeth Le Roux. “Exploring Transnational Dimensions of Activism in Contemporary Book Culture: Introduction.” Mémoires Du Livre 13, no. 2 (June 14, 2023): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.7202/1100559ar.

Thomas, June. A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women’s Culture. London: Virago, 2024.

From Margin to Market: The Growth of Queer Literature in the UK
2025-10-31 14:00 - 15:00
Join the webinar now

Over the past five years, the UK has seen a striking surge in LGBTQIA+ literature, both in visibility and in commercial weight. The “Queer Top 50” alone accounted for around 2.2 million books sold and £20.6 million in value last year 2024, showing that queer writing is no longer a niche but a significant cultural and economic force.

Breakout titles such as Heartstopper have set records—60,000 copies sold in just three days—proving that readers are hungry for authentic queer stories across genres. This growth is also supported by change inside the industry itself: in 2024, 16% of the UK publishing workforce identified as LGBT+, up from just 5% in 2017, helping shift commissioning and marketing decisions towards greater inclusivity.

For independent and specialist booksellers, this represents both opportunity and responsibility. We are uniquely positioned to curate, champion, and hand-sell the diverse range of LGBTQIA+ titles that mainstream outlets may overlook. At a time when some schools and libraries are under pressure to remove queer books, shops like Gay on Wyebecome not just retailers but safe cultural spaces, sustaining visibility, access, and community for readers who need these stories most.

Join Tom Owen as he discusses the research that led to the opening of Gay on Wye and shares his vision for the future of queer literature on the UK high street. Stocking LGBTQIA+ books isn’t about cashing in on the pink pound — it’s about offering stories that resonate deeply with readers and help build lasting community.

About Tom Owen

Tom Owen is the founder of Gay on Wye, an independent LGBTQIA+ bookshop in Hay[1]on-Wye, the world-famous “town of books.” Opened in 2023 after nearly a decade of planning, the shop is Tom’s vision for a space where queer literature is not just included but celebrated. He curates a diverse selection of books that reflect the struggles, triumphs, and experiences of the LGBTQIA+ community.

With a background in creative arts, Tom has worked with institutions across South Wales and the UK, shaping his understanding of storytelling, culture, and representation. A passionate reader—especially of science fiction—he believes in literature’s power to transport, challenge, and affirm identities.

As an advocate for independent bookshops, Tom champions their role in amplifying underrepresented voices, offering alternatives to mainstream retail’s sales-driven approach. Through Gay on Wye, he isn’t just selling books—he’s fostering community, conversations, and visibility for queer stories.

Whether promoting LGBTQIA+ authors, creating a welcoming space for discovery, or simply sharing his love of books, Tom remains committed to the belief that every reader deserves to see themselves reflected in literature.

David Piovesan & The European Bookshop Business Model
2025-11-21 14:00 - 15:00
Join researcher and author David Piovesan as he shares insights from his four-year journey across 23 countries, where he met over 250 booksellers and publishing professionals. Drawing from his newly published book The European Bookshop Business Model (Routledge, October 2025), Piovesan offers a compelling overview of how bookshops are navigating the challenges of the digital age. Discover the strategies, struggles, and innovations shaping the future of bookselling in Europe.

David Piovesan is an Associate Professor in Management Sciences at Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, France, and a former CEO of a French independent bookshop. He is leading a research program on book markets from a European-based perspective. He has been a visiting researcher in several universities (Prague, Padua, Münster). He is regularly invited to speak at book fairs and professional meetings all over Europe. He is currently researching the role of books in facing ecological issues.

The European Bookshop Business Model

BYOB25: Books and spaces
2025-12-12 14:00 - 15:00
Our final session of the year will be on Friday, 12th December, again at 2 pm on Teams — this will be our now traditional festive session, where you are invited to bring along a book you’ve enjoyed this year to talk about. This year’s twist, to fit in with the theme of next year’s conference: be prepared to also talk about the space you obtained your book from, and the space(s) where you read it! Any book genre, any book format welcome!

Link to Join: BRN session | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams

Sheila Markham & Conversations with the Rare Book Trade
2026-01-27 14:00 - 15:00
Sheila Markham is an Honorary Member of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association for her oral history project celebrating rare booksellers and collectors from around the world.

After reading Theology at Oxford, Sheila joined Marlborough Rare Books in 1979, where she spent seven years doing a traditional apprenticeship. She worked for various leading figures in the rare book business, and ran her own business specialising in books on the Ancient Near East for a few years. In 1994 she became Librarian of the Travellers Club in London, a position which she continues to hold.

In 1991 Sheila was invited by the editor of The Bookdealer to conduct a series of interviews with her colleagues in the world of rare books. The project continues to this day, although they now appear in The Book Collector, and the total number of interviews published so far is 172. Two collections of interviews were published in book-form in 2004 and 2014, and A Third Book of Booksellers: Conversations with the Antiquarian Book Trade will be published on 1 December 2025.

In her talk, Sheila will share some of her findings from these conversations, covering a period from the early 1990s, when bookselling had hardly changed since the invention of printing, to the turbulent times of online commerce.

The majority of those interviewed come from the English-speaking world, but booksellers in Argentina, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain and Turkey are also represented. One of the recurring themes in these global conversations is the unanimous belief in the survival and enduring appeal of the book as a physical object.

Insights from the Booksellers Association research into the Cultural and Community Value of Bookshops across the UK and Ireland
2026-03-03 14:30 - 15:30
It has long been the contention of the Booksellers Association (UK and Ireland) that its members – chains and indies – play an outsize role in enriching the cultural lives of their communities. Starting in 2024, research has been undertaken to determine the extent to which and in what ways bookshops enrich their communities, whilst identifying enablers and barriers so that this contribution can be sustained and strengthened. Consequently, a series of research reports has been produced covering England (September 2024), Ireland (excl. Northern Ireland: November 2024), Scotland (November 2025), and Wales (scheduled for January 2026). Howard will outline the insights arising from this body of research, similarities and contrasts between the four nations, and the key policy recommendations that have emerged.

Howard Davies has a background in Public Affairs and Public Policy. Howard is a self-confessed bookshop enthusiast. He has previously worked for the Booksellers Association of UK and Ireland as (maternity cover) Head of Policy and Public Affairs. Howard authored the 2024 research reports on the Cultural Role and Value of England’s Independent Bookshops (funded by Arts Council England and supported by the BA), and on the Cultural Role and Value of Bookshops in Ireland (funded by the BA), and the November 2025 BA research report into the Cultural and Community role of Scotland’s Bookshops, and the January 2026 research report into the Cultural and Community role of Wales’s Bookshops.

Literature for the People: How the Pioneering Macmillan Brothers built a Publishing Powerhouse
2026-03-13 14:00 - 15:00
Join us with this link: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/91934261983?pwd=[REDACTED]

From poverty on the Isle of Arran, via a little shop in Cambridge, two men with little education founded one of the world’s most famous publishing companies, bringing to their Victorian readers, authors as varied as Lewis Carroll, Christina Rossetti, Matthew Arnold, Thomas Hughes and Alfred Lord Tennyson. They combined fabulous networking skills with a keen business sense and a love of fine writing. Above all, the brothers, Christian Socialists, believed that publishing should have moral and political purpose.Within two generations the family would produce a British Prime Minister – quite the ‘rags to riches’ tale.

Sarah Harkness studied PPE at Mansfield College, Oxford, then joined an investment bank in the City, one of the first women working in corporate finance, where she enjoyed a highly successful career for twenty years. For the last twenty years she has served on a number of boards, including both public and private companies. Her interests have been primarily in the education, culture and health sectors, including three years as Pro-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield. She is now chair of Orthopaedic Research UK. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from Sheffield University and an Honorary Fellowship at Mansfield College. In 2018, a ten-year personal interest in a pioneering Victorian artist and writer, Nelly Erichsen, led to her writing and self-publishing a well-received biography, which was longlisted for the 2019 William MB Berger Prize for British Art History. In October 2021 she was awarded an MA with Distinction in Biography at the University of Buckingham, studying under Professor Jane Ridley. In 2021 she won the Tony Lothian Prize, awarded by The Biographers’ Club, for the best proposal for an uncommissioned biography. Literature for the People: How the Pioneering Macmillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse was published by Pan Macmillan in May 2024.

From Market to Margin: The Growth of Queer Literature in the UK
2026-04-14 14:00 - 15:00
Over the past five years, the UK has seen a striking surge in LGBTQIA+ literature, both in visibility and in commercial weight. The “Queer Top 50” alone accounted for around 2.2 million books sold and £20.6 million in value in 2024, showing that queer writing is no longer a niche but a significant cultural and economic force.

Breakout titles such as Heartstopper have set records — 60,000 copies sold in just three days — proving that readers are hungry for authentic queer stories across genres. This growth is also supported by change inside the industry itself: in 2024, 16% of the UK publishing workforce identified as LGBT+, up from just 5% in 2017, helping shift commissioning and marketing decisions towards greater inclusivity.

For independent and specialist booksellers, this represents both opportunity and responsibility. We are uniquely positioned to curate, champion, and hand-sell the diverse range of LGBTQIA+ titles that mainstream outlets may overlook. At a time when some schools and libraries are under pressure to remove queer books, shops like Gay on Wye become not just retailers but safe cultural spaces, sustaining visibility, access, and community for readers who need these stories most.

Join Tom Owen, founder of Gay on Wye, an independent LGBTQIA+ bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, as he discusses the research which led to the opening of his shop and his vision for the future of queer literature on the UK high street, Stocking LGBTQIA+ books isn’t about cashing in on the pink pound — it’s about offering stories that resonate deeply with readers and help build lasting community.

About Tom Owen:

Tom opened Gay on Wye in 2023 after nearly a decade of planning. With a background in the creative arts, he has worked with institutions across South Wales and the UK, shaping his understanding of storytelling, culture, and representation. A passionate reader — especially of science fiction — he believes in literature’s power to transport, challenge, and affirm identities.

Whether promoting LGBTQIA+ authors, creating a welcoming space for discovery, or simply sharing his love of books, Tom remains committed to the belief that every reader deserves to see themselves reflected in literature.

BA Bookshop Mentoring Scheme with Creative Access
2026-05-22 14:00 - 15:00
Masterclass 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl_pbkGzBo4

Masterclass 2026: www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7o1H56VjRs

Throughout 2025, the Booksellers Association (BA) collaborated with Creative Access to deliver a mentoring programme designed to support young people seeking to enter—or advance within—the bookselling profession. Fifteen mentees, selected by Creative Access from communities historically under‑represented in the book trade, were paired with experienced bookseller mentors identified by the BA. In her presentation, Kate Gunning, Head of Membership Development at the BA, will discuss the origins of the initiative and provide an overview of its implementation and outcomes.

Kate Gunning, Head of Membership Development at the Booksellers Association, is a seasoned bookselling and publishing professional with extensive experience across retail management, buying, and member services. Joining the Booksellers Association in 2022 as Acting Membership Manager, she now supervises all membership processes and services and runs BA Learning, the Association’s learning and development programme. She also runs the Children’s and Christian Bookselling Groups and the Independent Booksellers Forum. Kate previously spent 13 years at Waterstones, managed stores in Paris and London, served as Book Buyer at Selfridges and Head of Buying at Foyles, and later spent 12 years as Independent Bookshops Manager at Penguin Random House.

The British Book Trade and the Book War of 1906
2026-06-19 14:00 - 15:00
With Dr Maria Vassilopoulos (University of Wales Press)

Maria Vassilopoulos has worked as a bookseller, for The Bookseller magazine and in publishing sales for her whole career, spanning over twenty years. She currently works for University of Wales Press as Global Sales Manager and Head of Sales and Marketing.

Vassilopoulos has a PhD from UCL in Book Trade History and is currently writing a short monograph about the Book War to be published by CUP. She is also author of of An Evening with the Book Society and archivist for them and the Society of Young Publishers. She is a trustee of the Book Trade Charity.

The British Book Trade and the Book War of 1906: Vassilopoulos will reminisce about the first time she encountered an event called the ‘Book War’ in 2015, when she was working on the eventual topic of her PhD thesis. Her discovery of this microhistory enabled her to conduct archival research and media analysis to tell a fuller story of the dispute between the Publishers’ Association and The Times Book Club. There will be an explanation of this so-called war and its relation to the Net Book Agreement of 1900, followed by Vassilopoulos’s findings from her research, which she believes cement it as an event that matters to the scholarly record of book trade history and, most importantly, the Net Book Agreement.

BRN Bookselling Conference 2026: Spaces of Bookselling
2026-09-09 17:00 - 2026-09-11 13:00
Bangor University | 9–11 September 2026In association with the Stephen Colclough Centre for the History and Culture of the Book

“For such a space entails the unexpected. The specifically spatial within time-space is produced by that—sometimes happenstance, sometimes not—arrangement-in-relation-to-each-other that results from the multiplicity of trajectories. In spatial configurations, otherwise unconnected narratives may be brought into contact, or previously connected ones may be wrenched apart. There is always an element of ‘chaos.’ This is the chance of space.”— Doreen Massey, For Space (2005)

How Queer Bookshops Changed the World
2026-11-25 14:00 - 15:30
With A. J. West, author of How Queer Bookshops Changed the World (Oneworld, 2026).

A.J.West is a Sunday Times bestselling, multi-award-winning historical fiction novelist and historian. Prior to publication he was a breakfast host on BBC television news. He appears regularly on national television and radio programmes discussing literature, history and current affairs. His novel, The Betrayal of Thomas True, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller, winning the coveted CWA Historical Dagger award, while The Spirit Engineer won the Historical Writers Association Debut Crown. With a passion for digging up forgotten historical stories and bringing them back to life, he spends much of his time exploring archives and visiting locations of historical interest, not to mention touring independent bookshops.

Join via zoom: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/97453193955?pwd=[REDACTED]

Meeting ID: 974 5319 3955

Passcode: [REDACTED]
