To build your utopia, visit a bookshop

This year 2024 will be the fourteenth edition of Bookshops Day, which on 11 November is dedicated to highlighting the importance of independent bookshops in promoting reading and culture. 

With this day, the Spanish Confederation of Booksellers' Guilds and Associations (CEGAL) wishes to highlight the efforts of independent bookshops to remain alive and active, making their environments more dynamic, generating culture and community through books and their reading, and consequently promoting bibliodiversity.

CEGAL recalls that, according to the Barometer of Reading Habits and Book Purchasing in Spain, the main place to buy books is still the bookshop. Unfortunately, there are 6.2% fewer of these establishments in Spain today than in the last census, carried out in 2022, although it is worth recognising an evolution in businesses, including an increase in book turnover, an increase in the surface area of sales rooms and also a greater demand for digital books. 

Independent booksellers are resisting and are increasingly becoming resistant to the traditional way of transmitting knowledge. However, the new generations discover a new world when they enter one of these premises and establish a relationship with someone for whom selling books is more than just a commercial relationship. This work of guidance, advice and orientation has always facilitated a special relationship between bookseller and customer, which the most regular readers not only do not renounce, but also make it part of their most perennial customs and affections. 

For statistical purposes, CEGAL has provided us with the figures that outline the health of Spanish readers. And these reveal that in 2023 independent bookshops sold almost 16 million copies, a decrease of 9.97% compared to 2022. However, turnover increased by 5.45 % to 283.5 million euros. These outlets continue to outperform the large chains overall, which last year shipped 14 million copies with a turnover of 227 million euros. 

However, it is worth noting that the gap between independent bookshops and large chains is narrowing. Whereas in 2020, the former accounted for 56.85% of sales compared to 43.15% for the latter, by 2023 the ratio had fallen from 55.53% to 44.47%. 

At the last Bookshop Congress, it became clear that, in addition to calling for greater training for booksellers in commercial and economic management, opening up to new audiences and creating spaces of identity (catalogue selection, improved image, programming of the cultural agenda, etc.), they identified the lack of business turnover and the need for qualified staff as a major problem. 

In this respect, CEGAL has made information available to all professionals on the upcoming closures of bookshops to facilitate the transfer and continuity of the activity, and also as a tool to set up territorial employment exchanges to cover the demand for personnel. 

On 11 November, bookshops all over Spain will offer extraordinary activities to enrich the cultural life of the community and preserve the tradition of those that open their doors in the neighbourhoods. On this occasion, some of them will also be decorating their windows with the works of artists who, in the days leading up to the event, will be illustrating their windows with ‘Utopias’.