NATIONAL DAYWRITING & MEDIA

Independent Bookstore Day

Independent bookstores are neighborhoods. They are where the weird kids find the weird books, where the grown-ups find their second lives, where towns find their soul. Independent Bookstore Day, the last Saturday in April, is the day we walk in and remember.

APR25

Saturday, April 25Last Saturday in April

Roots: California
Vibe: Crunchy Paper
Also on Apr 25: World Penguin Day · Parental Alienation Day · World Malaria Day
Hashtag: #IndependentBookstoreDay

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Ways to celebrate

One rule: go to a real bookstore today. Everything else follows.

📚 Visit an indie in your town. If you don't know of one, Indiebound.org finds the nearest.
💰 Spend at least $20. Every purchase keeps them in business.
💬 Ask for a recommendation. Booksellers are curators; this is their core skill.
✍️ Attend a reading, signing, or event. Most indies host at least one that weekend.
🎟️ Do the Passport Day tour. Participating stores stamp a passport as you visit — usually with a prize at the end.

Make it your kind of celebration

Family
Saturday morning bookstore run. Everyone picks one. Everyone talks about what they picked at lunch.
Kids
Let kids pick their own book. The bookseller probably has a kids' section with a rug. This is kid-paradise.
Couples
Separate routes in the same store. Meet at the cafe. Show each other what you found. Date night in 60 minutes.
Office
Office book-swap funded by the company — everyone expenses one book from a local indie. Cheapest, highest-ROI perk in a handbook.
School
Teacher tradition: class trip to an indie, or classroom library funded by the indie-day passport discount. Real-world literacy.
Community
Organize a library-to-bookstore walking tour. Coffee at the start, dinner at the end, books in the middle.
Just me
Four hours. One bookstore. One coffee. One find. Do not look at your phone.

Plan ahead

Independent Bookstore Day is observed on the last Saturday in April. Here is where it lands for the next ten years, handy for planners, marketers and party people.

2026Sat, Apr 25this year

2027Sat, Apr 24

2028Sat, Apr 29

2029Sat, Apr 28

2030Sat, Apr 27

2031Sat, Apr 26

2032Sat, Apr 24

2033Sat, Apr 30

2034Sat, Apr 29

2035Sat, Apr 28

2036Sat, Apr 26

Add to my calendar (repeats yearly)

Fast facts

2014

April 24, 2027

The story

Five years ago, independent bookstores were supposed to be dead. Amazon had won. Chain bookstores had lost. Paper was done. None of that turned out to be true.

Read the full story

Independent Bookstore Day was founded in 2014 by Samantha Schoech and a small group of California bookstore owners who wanted a single day that would celebrate and promote independents. That first year, 400 stores participated. By 2024, it was over 1,000 stores in all 50 states, plus Canada and the UK.

The recent story is remarkable. According to the American Booksellers Association, the number of independent bookstores in the U.S. dropped from 2,800 in 1999 to roughly 1,400 in 2009, the chain store and Amazon era. Then, against every prediction, the number began climbing again. In 2024, the ABA counted over 2,600 indies, nearly back to 1999 levels, and more indies than there were in 2010.

Why the turnaround? A few reasons. Readers got tired of algorithmic recommendations. Parents wanted places to take kids. People missed third places, not home, not work, somewhere to be. And the rise of BookTok and Bookstagram turned cozy indies into aspirational Instagram backdrops, a fact that benefits indies far more than it benefits Amazon.

National Independent Bookstore Day is now one of the biggest retail events of the year for the 2,600+ indies across the country. Many do special editions, secret author drops, Passport Day tours, live music, wine and cheese. It's the closest thing American literature has to a national holiday. Use it.

What a good local bookstore actually does for you:

Six indies worth a pilgrimage:

Did you know?

BookTok sells millions of indie titles per year.

TikTok's #BookTok community drives enormous sales at indies. A viral 30-second video can sell out a mid-list backlist title in three days.

Shakespeare and Company has hosted ~30,000 "tumbleweeds."

The Parisian bookstore lets aspiring writers sleep in the store in exchange for work and a one-page autobiography. 30K+ pages since 1951.

The first American bookstore opened in 1647.

Hezekiah Usher's shop in Boston. Sold bibles, sermons, primers. The bookselling tradition in America is older than the U.S. by 129 years.

Indie bookstore numbers have rebounded strongly since 2019.

The American Booksellers Association reports record membership growth, with hundreds of new stores opening each year. Indies aren't surviving, they're thriving.