Christmas Books is a consumer catalogue, produced by the Books Are My Bag team in partnership with Gardners. As well as the main catalogue, a shorter version, featuring just the children’s titles, is also available. The books featured in the catalogue showcase the best books to gift this festive season and are newly published in either the autumn or winter of the current year. The titles are selected by independent booksellers (from publisher submissions), for independent booksellers (who are members of the Booksellers Association) and their customers. The catalogue publishes in October. This year, we are delighted that illustrator Alex T. Smith has designed both the main and children's catalogues. Booksellers have the option to customize the catalogues with their bookshop details, logos and QR codes (either to their own e-commerce platform, or to a third party such as Bookshop.org, Hive or Litalist). Following bookseller feedback from 2024, in 2025 we made the catalogue slightly shorter to help alleviate postage costs. Subsidies for distribution and local advertising are available to booksellers to increase the reach of the catalogues. An e-mag edition and social media assets are available to booksellers in order to reach customers online. Printed point of sale materials, including dispensers, posters and bookmarks are also available. We work closely with partners such as Bookshop.org, Hive, Batchline, Litalist, Libro.fm and Edelweiss to ensure the catalogues are working hard as possible to drive sales. A list of all Christmas Books titles can be found via the Books Are My Bag Bookshop.org page.
Books Are My Bag is a year-round, consumer-facing campaign, run by the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland. It exists to make connections between bookshops and people who value them; to raise awareness of the work booksellers do within their communities; and to encourage people to do their book-shopping with their local bookshop. If you would like any more information about Christmas Books, please contact [email protected] or [email protected], or visit our skills hub guide for more help and support.