Independent Bookshop Week 2026 (the 20th anniversary): Saturday 13 – Saturday 20 June

Independent Bookshop Week is a celebration of independent bookshops across the UK and Ireland. It aims to highlight the vital role independent bookshops play in their communities, and to encourage consumers to shop for their summer reads with their local independent. The campaign launched in 2006 and we will be celebration the twentieth anniversary of the campaign this year.

Independent Bookshop Week takes place annually, mid-June. Hachette UK is the headline sponsor, with support from Gardners and NielsenQ BookData. 

The campaign hashtag is #IndieBookshopWeek. Follow @booksaremybag on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for Independent Bookshop Week updates. 
 
All of the registered members will receive point of sale kits mid-May, and dedicated newsletters (from January through to the campaign end).
 
Publishers are invited to support the campaign by offering members signed stock, indie exclusive editions, early releases, added value items, author signings and events.

Almost 800 independent bookshops are registered to participate.

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Independent Bookshop Week 2026:

• ​- National Book Tokens launched their High Five for Bookshops initiative during the 2019 campaign and it has become an integral part of Independent Bookshop Week. All participating bookshops receive flyers to pass onto their customers, enabling them to download a £5/€5 National Book Tokens e-gift card to spend back in the bookshop that gave it to them.
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- Each year we invite a well-known poet to write an Exclusive Poem for us, in celebration of independent bookshops. We then film the poet reading the poem in their local bookshop and share the video across social media during the campaign. Brian Bilston wrote our inaugural poem in 2021, with Hollie McNish, Dean Atta and George the Poet and Michael Pedersen writing subsequent poems. Look out for the annnouncement about the 2026 poem, coming soon. 

- Working with Hachette UK, our headline sponsor, we line up three authors each year to act as Ambassadors for the campaign. Our 2026 ambassadors are Kit de Waal, Katriona O’Sullivan and Katie Clapham.

- Indie Twinning involves independent publishers and independent bookshops teaming up to develop bespoke programmes of activity throughout the campaign. This activity helps to drive local media coverage, footfall and social media content, as well as forging relationships within the independent sector.

- Publishers, consumers, authors and anyone who values bookshops, are encouraged to go on a Bookshop Crawl at any point during the campaign week.

- Authors are encourage to try their hand at a spot of Guest Bookselling. Whether it be for an hour, a morning or afternoon, or a full day, this is a great way to generate social media content, a photo opportunity, and a chance for authors to sign some copies of their books in-store.

- The Big Book Club involves as many independent bookshops as possible hosting in-person book clubs at the same time on the Wednesday of the campaign (Wednesday 17 June 2026). We encourage the book clubs to choose a title from the Indie Book Awards shortlist to read.
 
Booksellers Association members may opt in or out of participating in Independent Bookshop Week at any point. Please email Emma Bradshaw if you would like to check if you are registered to participate, or if you would like to change your participation.

If you are an author, poet, illustrator, agent or publisher and would like to know more about the campaign, please email Emma Bradshaw

The Indie Book Awards are the only awards curated exclusively by independent bookshops. They showcase the best paperback reads for the summer and help demonstrate the impact of independent booksellers building readerships for the books they love.

The Indie Book Awards comprise four categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Children’s Fiction and Picture Book. Publishers can submit up to three titles per imprint, per category (submission open in January and close in February each year). Independent booksellers across the UK and Ireland curate the shortlist from the publisher submissions and a panel of judges then decide on the four winners. The Indie Book Awards shortlists and winners are promoted to and by all bookshops participating in Independent Bookshop Week. 

2026 Indie Book Awards Shortlist

Non-Fiction

• Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane, (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House UK)
• Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams, (Pan, Pan Macmillan) 
• Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity by Robin Ince, (Pan, Pan Macmillan) 

Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War by Ash Sarkar, (Bloomsbury)

• Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy, (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House UK)
• The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny by Laura Bates, (Simon & Schuster UK) 

 
Fiction
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang, (Voyager, HarperFiction)
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, (Canongate Books)
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix, (Tor Nightfire, Pan Macmillan)
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis, (Orion / W&N, Hachette)
The Names by Florence Knapp, (Orion / Phoenix, Hachette)
Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen, (Faber & Faber)
 
Children’s Fiction
Tiny Hercules by Jon Lock and Nich Angell, (Macmillan Children's Books)
Quill and the Last Generation by C.M. Lewis, illustrated by Marina Vidal, (Macmillan Children's Books)
Donut Squad: Make a Mess! by Neill Cameron, (Phoenix Comic Book, David Fickling Books)
Finn’s Epic Fails by Phil Earle, illustrated by AL Murphy (Simon & Schuster Children's Books)
Like a Brother by Nathanael Lessore, (Hot Key Books, Bonnier Books UK)
Crow: Thief of Magic by Fiona Dixon, (HarperCollins Children's Books)
 
Picture Book
Frank and Bert: The One Where Bert is Scared of Frogs by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros, (Nosy Crow)
We Grew a Dragon by Emma Chinnery, (Bloomsbury Children's Books)
Seven Babies by Forest Xiao, (Walker Books)
Mouse by the Sea by Alice Melvin, (Thames and Hudson)
Hank Meets Frank by Maudie Powell-Tuck, illustrated by Duncan Beedie, (Little Tiger)
Fox and the Mystery Letter by Alex G Griffiths, (Frances Lincoln Children's Books, Quarto)

Find more information on the titles here, and download social media assets here.

Two judging panels (one for the two children’s categories, one for the two adult categories), each made up of five booksellers, will decide on the winners. Our thanks to Leslie Legget (First Draft Books); Jack Mountford (Paper Moon); Pao Salcedo (Lighthouse Bookshop); Dawn Williams (Chapters Bookstore); Sadie Young (Chepstow Books & Gifts), the adult categories judges, and Dan Fridd (Bookbugs and Dragon Tales); Elaine Sinclair (Daydreams Bookshop); Alison Brumwell (The Little Bookshop, Leeds); Sanchita Basu De Sarkar (Children’s Bookshop, Muswell Hill); McKenna Adare (O’Mahoney’s), the children’s category judges.

The winners of the Indie Book Award will be announced on Thursday 18 June.

Find out about previous Indie Book Awards winners. 
 
If you have any queries about the Indie Book Awards, please contact Katie Connor