We have some great news about National Reading Group Day, held this year on 30^th June, as the first day of Independent Booksellers Week (30^th June to 7^th July), and we have teamed up with Sceptre and The Reading Agency to bring you the following news.

Chris Cleave, author of The Other Hand, Incendiary and forthcoming novel Gold (an IBW Collectible in its deluxe edition) – and a great reading group favourite – is putting himself forward as the prize for a Reading Group.  He will visit the winning Reading Group for tea and cakes (or wine and nibbles!) * and any bookshop reading group will be eligible to enter the competition.

The competition will launch to consumers around National Reading Group Day, and we will provide booksellers with a downloadable poster to promote the competition in-store, in addition to the generic NRGD point of sale as part of the IBW POS Kit.

IBW is working with the Reading Agency again on the promotion of NRGD, and the competition entries will be via the Reading Groups for Everyone website www.readingroups.org – visit to see detail on the competition – http://readinggroups.org/news/chris-cleave-competition-for-national-reading-group-day.html

We are also encouraging booksellers to make contact with their local libraries about National Reading Group Day – to see if there is scope for joint events, joint promotion of authors or ways of creating enhanced reading group experiences for members of library or bookshop reading groups.  Shortly, we will have a list of participating library services which are keen to work with bookshops, and we would love to see some creative partnerships between bookshops and libraries for NRGD, and into the future.

We have a BUMPER bulletin full of Collectibles and offers from Orion.

First off, we are very excited to bring you news of IBW Collectibles from Orion – on offer exclusively to independents for IBW 2012 are some fabulous signed copies:

THE TRUTH – MICHAEL PALIN (SIGNED COPIES)

THE SECOND WORLD WAR – ANTONY BEEVOR (SIGNED COPIES)

SOME KIND OF FAIRY TALE – GRAHAM JOYCE (includes exclusive extra material)

Orion are also offering new consumer prices on a range of eight fabulous backlist titles.

AN EQUAL STILLNESS Francesca Kay

THIRTEENTH TALE Diane Setterfield

SNOBS Julian Fellowes

TIGER’S WIFE Tea Obreht

SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR J. G. Farrell

THE READER Bernhard Schlink

A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS R. J. Ellory

THE HEART OF THE MATTER Emily Griffin

Also, Octopus are offering a special independent exclusive price on a gorgeous book:

The Vintage Tea Party Book: A Complete Guide to Hosting Your Perfect Tea Party By Angel Adoree

Published by Mitchell Beazley,  Hardback

To order any of the above titles, order as usual through your Orion rep, or contact maggy.park@orionbooks.co.uk or dominic.smith@orionbooks.co.uk for processing.

And, as if all this was not enough, we have some great authors on offer for IBW from Orion too:

Author Availability for Bookshop Events:

SHELLEY HARRIS

JUBILEE paperback on 24 May 2012

Contact: elizabeth.allen@orionbooks.co.uk

FRANCESCA KAY

THE TRANSLATION OF BONES (longlisted for The Orange Prize 2012)

Published in hardback on 25 August 2011

Contact: elizabeth.allen@orionbooks.co.uk

KENNETH MACLEOD

THE INCIDENT

Published in hardback on 5 April 2012

Contact: helen.richardson@orionbooks.co.uk

ADRIAN GOLDSWORTHY

BEAT THE DRUMS SLOWLY

Published in hardback on 9 August 2011

Contact: helen.richardson@orionbooks.co.uk

HELEN MOSS

ADVENTURE ISLAND SERIES

Contact: Louise Court louise.court@orionbooks.co.uk

PAUL TORDAY

THE LEGACY OF HARTLEPOOL HALL

Published in hardback on 5 January 2012

Contact: rebecca.gray@orionbooks.co.uk

J.W. IRONMONGER

THE NOTABLE BRAIN OF MAXMILLIAN PONDER

Published in hardback on 29 March 2012

Contact: rebecca.gray@orionbooks.co.uk

RACHEL BILLINGTON

MARIA AND THE ADMIRAL

Published in hardback on 10 May 2012

Contact: rebecca.gray@orionbooks.co.uk

If you need more detail on any of the above offers, contact meryl.halls@booksellers.org.uk

We’re pleased to bring you two Headline authors in this Bulletin.

Steven Dunne

Location – Derby

Available for crime panel events / solo events / Strictly Come Bookselling

Contact: Samantha.Eades@headline.co.uk

About the author

Steven Dunne has written for fun since attending Kent University.  After a brief and terrifying stint as a standup comic, he became a freelance journalist writing for The Times and the Independent.  He is now a part-time teacher in Derby.  He is the author of the highly acclaimed thrillers THE REAPER and THE DISCIPLE.  His latest novel Deity is a British serial killer thriller of the highest order to rival the very best of Mark Billingham, Peter James and Peter Robinson.

Follow Steven on twitter @ReaperSteven or visit his website www.stevendunne.co.uk

Tanya Byrne

Location – Kingston

Available for teen panel events/teen days/Strictly Come Bookselling

Contact: Samantha.Eades@headline.co.uk

About the author

Tanya Byrne was born in London and studied in Surrey, where she still lives with her cat who goes by several names, none of which he actually answers to.  After eight years working for BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4, she left to write her debut novel.  She started the novel at a Writer’s Retreat in the South of France.  She has a weakness for boys with guitars, drinks far too much tea and even though her mother tells her not to, she always talks to strangers.  To find out more about Tanya, follow her on twitter @tanyabyrne or visit her blog http://tanyabyrne.tumblr.com/

Reminiscent of the film GIRL INTERRUPTED, HEART-SHAPED BRUISE tells the story of Emily Koll, the most notorious inmate of Archway Young Offenders Institution. Through her journals, Emily reveals piece-by-piece just how far she went to get revenge on the girl whose testimony sent her father to prison.

We have some fantastic commitment from the Independent Alliance for IBW this year, with four great IBW Collectibles from Alliance publishers, as well as author availability for IBW.

First the IBW Collectibles:

Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart – £9.99

Limited edition hardback for IBW, either signed by Chris Stewart or with a specially designed signed bookplate.

ISBN: 9781908745279

Order from: samb@faber.co.uk

Faber Poetry Diary –£12.99

Offered exclusively to Indie booksellers for two months.

ISBN: 9780571279401

Order from: samb@faber.co.uk

Apricot Jam by Alexander Solzhenitsyn – £8.99

Paperback offered exclusively to indie booksellers for three months.

ISBN: 9780857863195

Order from: samb@faber.co.uk

Just My Type by Simon Garfield – a limited deluxe edition featuring a signed hardback edition of the book and an exclusive edition screen print FONT poster.

ISBN: 9781781250747

Order from: samb@faber.co.uk

And now for the Alliance authors available for IBW this year and their locations.  For contact details, see the IBW Bookseller Bulletin sent on 25th April, or email meryl.halls@booksellers.org.uk :

Mark Forsyth	Icon
Clare Jacobs	Short
Helen Walsh	Canongate	NW England
Mari Strachan	Canongate	Wales
Tahmima Anam	Canongate
Scarlett Thomas	Canongate	SE England
Chris Mullin	Profile	NE England
Fiona Shaw	Profile	Yorkshire
Andrew Martin	Profile	London
Elizabeth Wilson	Profile	London

We are really delighted to bring you news of an IBW Collectible from Macmillan Children’s Books. IBW Collectibles is our small range of collectible items being made available only from independents for IBW.

What the Ladybird Heard book and plush box set by Julia Donaldson, Lydia Monks (ISBN 9781447207313) is available to independents at a special IBW RRP of £9.49.

For order details, contact meryl.halls@booksellers.org.uk in the first instance.

The latest IBW Bulletin to reach booksellers focusses on author availability from Palgrave Macmillan.  The following authors are available for bookshop visits during IBW.

In all cases, contact Claire.morrison@palgrave.com to make arrangements.

Barry Forshaw, author of Death in a Cold Climate and British Crime Films –  he’s based in North London (Islington); he is an expert in crime fiction

Clive Bloom, author of Riot City and Violent London – he is based in Essex, though Riot City is about last August’s riots

Sebastian Groes, author of Making of London – North London

Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson, authors of Going South and Economics editors of the Guardian and Mail on Sunday – London

Michael Moran, author of The Reckoning

Taylor Owen, author of Olympia – based in Oxford

We are really pleased to bring you news of The Bookshop Band, who are available for a limited number of dates and locations during IBW, but are also available throughout the year for bookshop appearances.

The Bookshop Band write songs inspired by books, and began as a collaboration with Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, in Bath, as part of their author events programme. What happens is this:

The Bookshop Band read the relevant author’s book in advance and write two songs based upon it, to be performed at the start of the evening.

• Their performances are inextricably linked to the books themselves, as the members of the band take it in turns to describe where the inspiration for each song came from.

After the first season the band recorded and released their first CD, Travels From Your Armchair. Despite only being available in the bookshop itself, word soon spread and they were picked up by radio DJ Tom Robinson who played them on his national Introducing show on BBC 6Music.  They have also appeared on Kirsty Lang’s culture show, BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, and on BBC 1 as part of a news feature on Britain’s independent bookshops. Over the course of the year, they have completed 18 author events, and written 36 songs inspired by 21 diverse books.

You can see them in action here www.vimeo.com/thebookshopband and find them on social media: www.twitter.com/thebookshopband and thebookshopband.bandcamp.com or www.thebookshopband.co.uk

The Bookshop Band already has a few IBW gigs lined up, so their availability is:

30th June  – Afternoon

Evening

(Ideally, en route between Nottingham and Glastonbury – overnight accommodation advice would help!)

3rd July – lunchtime or early afternoon – Oxfordshire

3^rd July – booked to play Jaffe & Neale, Chipping Norton

4^th July – booked to play Mr B’s, Bath

4th July – evening – Bath area

Bookshop Band events can be run as ticketed events – in which case a contribution towards the Band costs is appreciated – and in any case, the events are a great opportunity to sell the books the Band write the songs about.  The Bookshop Band also sell their own CD at the events.

To book The Bookshop Band – for IBW or for another occasion – contact Ben Please on 01225 422223 or 07789 348165 or email benplease@hotmail.com

Click here for a Bookshop Band Biog with a full list of books they have written songs about.

We’ve just received the cover image for Julian Barnes’ A Life With Books, our IBW Collectible.  Isn’t it beautiful?

Right, booksellers!  We need your help to create the shortlist for the IBW 2012 Book Award.  We have put together the longlist titles, submitted by publishers, into a survey – click here to access the survey – http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9QZ3J6J

We now need all IBW booksellers to vote on these lists to create the shortlists – it’s really important that we have votes in from as many IBW booksellers as possible so that we have as wide a range of bookseller opinion as possible.  The lists are divided into Adult and Children’s.  Please rate each title with a score from 0 to 5, depending on how much you like it and think it should be on the two shortlists.

Many thanks.  We look forward to seeing the shortlists emerge as you start voting.  Please can you complete and return your votes by April 30th 2012.

If you have any questions at all, or need clarification, please contact meryl.halls@booksellers.org.uk or sharon.down@booksellers.org.uk

We are proud and delighted to announce the next of our IBW Collectibles Range, from the Random House Group.

Julian Barnes, one of Britain’s most distinguished novelists, is also an acclaimed essayist. A Life with Books is an essay specially commissioned for Independent Booksellers Week, and it will be supplied exclusively to independent bookshops. In it, Julian Barnes writes about his early awareness of books and about his obsessive book-collecting and time spent in second-hand bookshops around the country. He ends by praising the physical book and expressing the confident hope that it will survive.

A Life with Books is published as a pamphlet, with cover art by Suzanne Dean, the renowned designer responsible for the cover of Julian Barnes’ Man Booker-winning The Sense of an Ending.

For full details of the offer, booksellers should email meryl.halls@booksellers.org.uk or sharon.down@booksellers.org.uk

To order copies, contact your local RHG sales representatives or Sue Bloomfield on 020 7840 8463 or SueBloomfield@randomhouse.co.uk

We hope you love this as much as we do.