For the first time since 1999, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association is holding its annual Fall Tradeshow in Spokane. Running from September 28–30, early reaction is that the move to eastern Washington feels like a win. According to Greg Holmes, PNBA’s events and operations director, 93 member bookstores and more than 200 booksellers had registered by opening day; 73 authors are being featured at events, with an additional half-dozen meeting attendees on the show floor.

PNBA maximized attendees’ time in the Lilac City by holding pre-show events on September 27. At Spokane County Library’s central branch, author and librarian Sharma Shields (Duckling, Holt, 2027) emceed an event with area authors including cozy-fantasy bestseller Travis Baldree (Brigands and Breadknives, Tor, Nov.). Later in the evening, Auntie’s Bookstore on Spokane’s Main Street hosted a reception, with booksellers admiring the landmark shop’s stacks and non-book selections.

At the Sunday membership meeting that officially started the show, executive director Brian Juenemann reported “extremely positive” trends in membership and new bookstores, despite the association operating under a projected deficit of about $14,000 in 2025. “We are north of 170 and probably at 175 members this year, and last year was our high at 160,” Juenemann said. In addition, “we have more stores that registered for this trade show than registered in Portland last year.”

The shift inland altered various trends from when PNBA is held in the metro regions of western Oregon and Washington. Mara Panich, owner of Fact & Fiction in Missoula, Mont., for instance, told PW she was able to drive to the show with multiple staffers instead of sending one person. Juenemann also attributed PNBA’s strong attendance to entrepreneurial expansion. “We’re experiencing a kind of generational turnover, a changing of the guard,” he said. “Some of our rooted stores only have a handful of people making the trip to Spokane, but smaller stores are showing up,” including the Corner Store (Butte, Mont.), It’s a Love Story Books and Café (Hayden, Id.), and Books & Bottles (Snoqualmie, Wa.).

In terms of vendors, 96 companies and their 150 staffers were represented in the exhibitor space. Juenemann chalked up a slight decline in tables reserved to “a few gun-shy Canadian exhibitors who were not interested in trying to get across our borders and back.” Ordinarily, 12 Canadian exhibitors attend PNBA’s fall show. This year, with U.S. tariffs, threats, and political uncertainty roiling the Canadian book market, sales manager Jen Cameron, of Orca Book Publishers, was the lone Canadian at a PNBA table.

“These are our customers,” Cameron said, adding that she felt all too aware of how identity shapes the safety of international travelers. Though other Canadian publishers opted out, a table next to Orca’s displayed titles from Thornapple Press—distributed in the U.S. by Microcosm—and Nine Ten Publications. American Kitty Stryker, author of Love Rebels: How I Learned to Burn It Down Without Burning Out (Thornapple, Oct.), had volunteered to staff the booth.

Matters of concern

Politics, and wildfire smoke from blazes in the Cascades, cast a pall over the proceedings for U.S. travelers, too. On September 27, the White House threatened to send federal troops into Portland, Ore., a provocation that Portland booksellers including Kim Bissell of Broadway Books hoped would meet with only peaceful protest from the Rose City’s outspoken and proudly diverse communities.

ABA CEO Allison Hill, visiting the show with an ABA delegation, noted at the membership meeting, “We’ve seen a significant uptick in harassment of stores, both for who you are and who you host. We have deep gratitude for what you’re doing, not just for your communities, but for our society and our democracy.” ABA is tracking anti-democratic action with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.

Board president Christine Longmuir, of Two Rivers Bookstore in Portland, choked up when she told PNBA attendees, “Owning and operating an independent bookstore is an act of revolution…. I am really honored to be an independent bookseller right now.”

Board VP Rosa Hernandez, of Third Place–Lake Forest Park, was seated next to Longmuir and responded, “Times are incredibly difficult—whether because of book bans, pushback for hosting Palestinian authors, harassment of trans and queer authors, or ICE raids on our neighborhoods.” She encouraged fellow booksellers to keep in touch with PNBA: “Our wider community is strong as hell, so please reach out and share and keep fighting.”

Other members of the board expressed various concerns. Hill fielded a question from Longmuir about Barnes & Noble’s acquisition of Tattered Cover and its pending acquisition of Books Inc.

“We know [B&N leadership] have talked to at least six other stores,” Hill answered. “They are definitely looking for independent bookstores in duress.” She said that ABA had surveyed several member stores that have had B&N branches open within a 10-mile radius. “We have absolutely heard from stores who have closed and said that was the nail in the coffin,” Hill said. Even so, Hill continued, the acquisitions are legal and public sales.

PNBA also is concerned about its holiday catalogs, which drive sales at more than 90 stores. The association prints 700,000 paper catalogs, manages the distribution in local newspapers or through USPS, and sends out more than 100,000 copies digitally. Secretary and treasurer Cassie Clemans, owner of Roundabout Books in Bend, Ore., reported that gift book ads in the catalog were $39,000 below budget in 2025, leading the association to explore other revenue streams. Juenemann acknowledged that ad sales were down “precipitously” and the catalogs had been reduced from 24 to 16 pages, even though “store commitment is up.”

“It’s a rollercoaster with this program that has bolstered us for decades,” Juenemann said of the catalog, which he called “a bargain” in terms of its marketing impact. “Publishers are getting more than ever out of this campaign and out of us, so why are they leaving us out of the planning equation?”

PNBA’s Fall Tradeshow continues through September 30. Next year’s meeting will be held in Portland, September 27–29, 2026.