Some 500 bookstores, including scores of children’s stores, participated in the fourth annual Independent Bookstore Day, held last Saturday, April 28. Stores typically will use the day as an opportunity to host authors, offers special discounts, and hold special events, many catering specifically to families with children. The results speak for themselves: American Booksellers Association CEO Oren Teicher reported that sales at indie bookstores were up 9.54% over sales in the same week IBD was held in 2017. Among the stores reporting the strongest sales was Green Apple Books, which has two stores in San Francisco. There, they offered “Books from the Future” (galleys and ARCs for customers), “Bad Book Trivia,” and an appearance at the Clement Street location of the store by children’s author Eli Meyskens, reading from his book The Lonely Bridge (Blurb Books). Sales at the store were up 75% from an average Saturday in April.

“The basic formula is an easy one: the stores that put effort and energy into throwing and promoting a great party have fantastic days, both in terms of fun and sales,” said IBD program director Samantha Schoech. The media, celebrities, and book lovers helped as well: “We were trending on Twitter all day long with Bookstore Day Tweets from the New York Times, Madeleine Albright, Neil Gaiman, Celeste Ng [who served as 2018 IBD Author Ambassador], lots of other authors, and thousands of booksellers and customers all over the U.S.”

To attract customers, the IBD organizers offer limited-edition items, which this year included baby onesies featuring a dragon illustration by Daniel Salmieri and the phrase “Dragons love books,” a reference to his Dragons Love Tacos picture book, and plush Maisy and Horton toys, wearing shirts saying “Read with me,” among other items.

Stores Celebrate with Special Events

Schoech visited Bookshop West Portal in San Francisco, where the stars of the day were Tombo, Quinoa, and Amigo, a trio of llamas brought in from a ranch in Sonora to celebrate the publication of Anna Dewdney’s Llama Llama Loves to Read (Viking). “The entire West Portal community has a terrific time meeting these gentle animals, but perhaps none more so than the bookseller/wranglers!,” said store owner Susan Tunis, who added that among the day’s other visitors to the store was middle grade author Jill Diamond in support of her new book Lou Lou and Pea and the Bicentennial Bonanza (FSG).

In Minnesota’s Twin Cities, 18 indies participated in Rain Taxi’s Passport program, in which each page that was stamped activated that store’s coupon, redeemable on a later visit. People who obtained five stamps in their passports were eligible for one of five $20 gift certificates; 10 stamps made one eligible for one of 28 literary gift packs; and 18 stamps made one eligible for the grand literary prize pack.

Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul, Minn., was one of the stores participating in the Twin Cities Passport program, with the addition of games and activities going on in the store all day, including two rounds of “Find [a photo] of John Green,” with the winner receiving a signed copy of Turtles All the Way Down (Dutton). Store owner Holly Weinkauf reported that IBD was a great success, with sales up almost 17% over last year. “And last year was great!,” she said. “I do feel like we are at a point where IBD has a lot of traction. Everyone was happy and excited to be supporting the indies. Some of our regulars came in but also lots of new customers and most people were buying. The TC passport definitely brought a lot of new people into our store.”

Chris Ferrie’s board book Rocket Science for Babies (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky) was a popular item at Red Balloon on IBD as Sourcebooks sponsored a promotion: customers who bought the book received a complimentary onesie.

Elsewhere in the Midwest in Chicagoland, 27 indie bookstores throughout the city and several of its inner-ring suburbs participated in the second annual #MyChicagoBookstore Challenge. Customers making a $25 purchase at the first store they visited received a passport and a stamp. The 66 people who had their passports stamped at 10 stores will receive a 10% discount in all the participating stores for the next year and the 27 people who had their passports stamped at 15 (or more) stores will receive a 15% discount for the next year

Sarah Hollenbeck, co-owner of Women and Children First in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, reported that sales were up 25% over last year and double sales in 2016. Islandborn by Junot Díaz (Dial) was a hit along with the YA novel Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (Holt). Book Stall at Chestnut Court floor manager Mike Wysock reported that sales at the Winnetka, Ill., store were double that of a typical Saturday, and “a little better” than last year’s IBD. While the store sponsored scavenger hunts for children with literary swag as prizes in-store, it also sold books offsite for a Kate DiCamillo appearance. “We sold a lot of books, a lot of backlist,” Wisock said. “It was a good day all around.”

Thirteen bookstores across the Boston area took part in a passport program in which customers could enter a raffle for baskets of books and related ephemera by visiting at least eight of the stores. Items for the 24 baskets were offered up by the bookstores along with local publishers, including Charlesbridge, MIT Press, David R. Godine, Candlewick, and Beacon.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Tildy Banker-Johnson who manages Belmont Books in Belmont, Mass., of the program. “People know that Cambridge and Somerville have a lot of bookstores, but it’s nice to get people to learn that the whole Boston area’s so rich in it. It really brings the spirit of Independent Bookstore Day to Boston.”

It was Belmont’s first Independent Bookstore Day and the store had additional programming alongside the raffles, including an early morning tour behind the scenes at the bookstore and a scavenger hunt that had kids swarming to find everything from “a picture book with a dog,” to “a book with no words.”

At Wellesley Books in Wellesley, Mass., readings were hosted throughout the day and customers could pick from shelves of wrapped advance reader copies adorned with hints in return for answering questions posed by the booksellers. Teens Abby Vallejo and Samantha Wolf each won for correctly guessing the name of the duck family in Make Way for Ducklings (Puffin).

Co-owner Gillian Kohli strolled through the aisles dressed as the Cat in the Hat, handing out green eggs and ham. By midday she said she was already willing to call the day’s programming a success. “Every year we hope it will build, and build it does each year,” said Kohli.

Down the coast, the Regulator Bookshop in Durham, N.C., hosted live hedgehogs and author Jacqueline Ogburn, author of the middle grade novel The Unicorn in the Barn (HMH). “We featured titles by local authors, had a free raffle of totes filled with ARCs, offered gift certificates, and gave Regulator swag to every customer on Indie Bookstore Day,” said Amy Spaulding, events coordinator and media manager at the store. “We had good crowds and were busy all day.”

In Texas, Austinites were invited to take part in a “bookstore crawl” and given a map of 15 participating stores; visits to three or more stores entitled you to enter a drawing for several “grand prizes,” which included books, sidelines, and gift certificates to area stores, including BookPeople, Half Price Books, and Malvern Books.

Dave Richardson, manager at Blue Marble Books in Fort Thomas, Ky., called the day “fantastic.” He noted, “Our normal Saturday mornings are slow but at 10 a.m. people were waiting to get in. We didn’t have a chance to sit down all day, which is unusual because we are a destination shop. People have to make plans to come here.” He added that compared to normal Saturdays, the store was “up a good 75% in sales” and “did have an unexpected run on sales of Baby Monkey, Private Eye (Scholastic).”

At Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Ga., co-owner Dave Shallenberger said sales at the store were more than double over a typical Saturday. “We had a good day with a lot going on; it was a great day with great energy.” The store hosted a book launch for Becky Albertalli for her new book Leah on the Offbeat (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray). “We had another author, Laurel Snyder, who we set up in a booth for book recommendations for a couple of hours,” he added. “We had donuts and coffee in the morning and cookies and lemonade in the afternoon.”

Hooray for Books! in Alexandria, Va., didn’t do quite as well as last year, something that Hilary Barrineau, the store’s manager attributed to the weather. “The weather has just been terrible for so long, and it was a pretty day so we think people didn’t want to be in bookstores,” she said. “We bought merchandise and had things planned, but on a pretty day it was hard to convince people to come inside.” She reported that a conference call with SIBA revealed a lot of stores in the region shared similar stories of slower sales than anticipated.

Out west, at Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse in La Cãnada, Calif., kids were offered a “Where’s Waldo?” scavenger hunt and patrons were asked to buy and donate children’s books to several local elementary schools.

Maggie Mae’s Kids Bookshop in Gresham, Ore., has only been open for two months, yet it still celebrated Independent Bookstore Day. “We had a great day filled with local author readings by Rae Rankin, nature journaling with Wendy Gorton, author of Oregon & Washington: 50 Hikes with Kids (Timber Press), scavenger hunts, and a coloring station for kids,” said owner Sho Roberts. “We were able to work with nearby small businesses to offer free ice cream, bowling, and discounts. The day was a huge success and was almost as big as our grand opening on March 17th.”