The Booksellers Association today announced the ambassadors and exclusive poem for this year’s Independent Bookshop Week, a weeklong campaign championing the intrinsic national value and vital local role that independent bookshops play in the UK and Ireland. A headline moment in Books Are My Bag’s year-round calendar of bookshop celebrating activity, Independent Bookshop Week aims to encourage consumer support, government engagement and book trade collaboration to specifically celebrate, promote and bolster independent bookshops collectively and individually. 

With Hachette UK returning as a headline sponsor, this year’s ambassadors are Lorraine Kelly - renowned broadcaster and author of The Island Swimmer (13 March 2025), Mike Gayle - mutiple Sunday Times bestseller and author of Hope Street (5 June 2025), and L.D. Lapinski - the internationally published in 16 languages author of Kickflip Vol. 1 (19 June 2025). With Michael Pedersen - current Edinburgh Makar (Poet Laureate) and author of 2023 Books Are My Bag Readers Awards category winner The Cat Prince & Other Poems - penning the exclusive Independent Bookshop Week poem.
 
Founded in 2006 and taking place this year between Saturday 14^th and Saturday 21st June, Independent Bookshop Week is both a key moment in the Books Are My Bag calendar of blockbuster bookshop championing campaigns, and a focal point of the Booksellers Association’s overarching mission to celebrate, advocate and support independent bookshops and the unique cultural, economic and community value they bring to shopping destinations and customers.
 
In 2024 approximately 700 independent bookshops participated with the Booksellers Association, via Books Are My Bag, providing each with a kit containing bunting, posters, bookmarks, postcards and shelf strips - alongside a suite of digital assets available in English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish.
 
Books Are My Bag also launched Independent Bookshop Week’s Big Book Club in 2024, which consisted of 20 independent bookshops bringing together over 350 readers. The Guest Bookselling initiative also returned in 2024 with 14 beloved authors getting behind the tills of local bookshops throughout the week (including Louise Minchin, Kate Mosse and Emma Carroll).
 
National Book Tokens (part of the Booksellers Association Group) continues to support Independent Bookshop Week with their High Five for Bookshops initiative - an annual, national e-gift card giveaway which gives independent bookshops a tangible way of rewarding loyal customers, while driving footfall and repeat purchase. In 2024, independent bookshops issued more than 13,500 vouchers, representing a total value of nearly £68,000 being invested back into high street bookselling. Since High Five launched in 2019, nearly £335,000 has been issued by independent bookshops to their customers. 
 
Last year’s Independent Bookshop Week campaign - which spanned over 100 individual events organised by independent bookshops - saw 427 pieces of media coverage (up 53% from 2023), 106,000,000 social media impressions (trending as high as #7 on X) and book sales rising by 7% week on week (3.5m books sold through TCM for a total value of £32.1m according to Nielsen DataScan).
 
Lorraine Kelly said: “I am so thrilled to be an ambassador for Independent Bookshop Week. Independent bookshops play a huge part in communities across the UK as they create new generations of readers, which as a book lover is incredibly close to my heart.”
 
Mike Gayle said: “Independent Bookshops have been at the heart of my 25 year career, from supporting my events at libraries and local community centres, to hand selling signed stock and hosting me in their events spaces. I love working with individual booksellers who are often incredibly passionate and know their communities inside out.  My local Indie, The Heath Bookshop has, in a very short space of time, made itself a vital cultural and community hub, not only hosting new and established author events but also launching their very own literary festival into the bargain! Their collaborations and relationships with surrounding independent businesses has helped to make this area of Birmingham a buzzing cultural and social destination where all are welcome.”
 
L D Lapinski said:  “A week before my debut book was published, the UK went into lockdown. All the bookshops closed, and I remember thinking this was a death-knell for my book, and for many others. But barely an hour after the announcement, I got a message from an independent bookshop asking What can we do to help each other? It was like finding a hand to hold in the dark. I owe independent bookshops a huge debt in getting my debut series into readers’ hands. Their enthusiasm for new stories, new readers and new ways of doing things is unmatched. There is an intrinsic social value to an independent bookshop. Where shoppers have the chance to spend their money locally, keep their local economies turning and their local high street alive.”
 
Michael Pedersen said: “The indies have triumphantly and steadfastly steered my books, and millions of other literary oddballs, into the hands of the right readers. They operate so skilfully beyond the brass of any online book buying algorithm the comparison ends here. The indies soar for authors because they’re so invested in the work, and even the wellbeing, of the many writers who waltz through their doors. It’s because they’ve creatively crafted their own style and identity; it’s because they’re trusted by those that quest them out; and because stories can change lives and that mantra seeps from the pores of their brilliant booksellers.”
 
David Shelley, CEO Hachette UK and Hachette Book Group said: “We are proud to continue our headline sponsorship of Independent Bookshop Week, a cherished and integral part of our partnership with the Booksellers Association. Independent bookshops are the lifeblood of our industry, and their role within their communities is more crucial than ever.”
 
Emma Bradshaw, Head of Campaigns at The Booksellers Association said: “The Booksellers Association is proud to celebrate, advocate and support bookshops all year round via our Books Are My Bags consumer campaigns, BA membership programmes and policy and public affairs activity, alongside the infrastructural enhancements offered to bookshops by group companies National Book Tokens and Batch on promotional and footfall-driving tools and technological solutions respectively. What Independent Bookshop Week offers uniquely is the opportunity to celebrate independents specifically. If that be through consumers shopping locally and independently, booklovers attending bookshop events, the media offering coverage or Westminster championing their needs, we urge everyone on Independent Bookshop Week to seize the moment and support independent bookshops in whatever way they can.”
 
With 723 independent bookshops already registered to participate, Independent Bookshop Week 2025 is shaping up to be the biggest year yet and will see the return of the most successful and beloved activity from prior years - including Guest Bookselling, Big Book Club and High Five for Bookshops - alongside a new partnership with Bookshop.org on an exclusive gift card giveaway and a free shipping weekend.
 
Running in parallel to the Hachette sponsored Independent Bookshop Week activity, 2025 will see the return of The Indie Book Awards - the only awards given to an author (or illustrator) on behalf of independent bookshops - with the winners announced on Friday 20^th June. Showcasing the best paperback reads for the summer, The Indie Book Awards provide tentpole moments as part of Books Are My Bag’s overall mission to demonstrate the impact of independent booksellers building readerships for the books they love, with shortlist and winners being promoted by all participating independent bookshops.  
 
This year, the vibrant and celebratory consumer activity of Independent Bookshop Week will be underpinned by the Bookseller Association campaigning for, and lobbying on, vital policy issues - such as business rates reform and landlord regulation - to make sure government is aware and responsive to the unique and varied needs of independent bookshops, by curating and supporting a retail landscape where independent bookshops can continue - both collectively as a sector and as individual businesses - to do the vital and varied work celebrated throughout Independent Bookshop Week.