Home 5 Articles and Reports 5 New Covid-19 Restrictions Hit UK Booksellers Hard

New Covid-19 Restrictions Hit UK Booksellers Hard

by | Dec 23, 2020 | Articles and Reports, News

Christmas 2020 is shaping up to be the worst ever for UK booksellers though publishers will be heartened by strong figures for print earlier in the month.  At midnight on Saturday 19 December, London and the South East, and the whole of Wales, were put into Tier 4, the UK government’s strictest Covid-19 restrictions which sees the closure of all non-essential retail.  It follows the discovery of a new variant of the virus which is spreading fast in the capital and across the south east.  The new restrictions have seen the closure of hundreds of bookshops, with the only physical shops selling books being a small number of WH Smith stores and a handful of supermarkets, both of which have limited ranges.

Yet the figures for print for earlier in December, after the earlier lockdown was lifted, are very strong, up 15% in volume on the previous year.  However, it maybe that Amazon has grabbed a large part of this increase.

The week before Christmas is the most important week for physical bookshops.  It is estimated that the Tier 4 closures could see bookshops lose £100m in sales.  There will be a knock-on affect to publishers too: come January bookshops will be left with stock that they have failed to sell and they will want to return it to publishers.  Difficult conversations lie ahead.

Commenting on the new restrictions, Meryl Hall, CEO of the UK Booksellers Association, said: “While we understand that public health must be a priority, and the new Covid strain is a big concern, the announcement  of further, no-notice, lockdowns in London and the south-east and in Wales, with more non-essential retail closures to come in Scotland and Northern Ireland, is desperately disappointing and frustrating.  Booksellers have absorbed every wave that’s hit them this year, and bookshops across the country were starting to make up lost ground after months of disruption – and really enjoying being back to what they do best, which is obviously selling books to hungry book-buyers. It’s heart-breaking to see the energy – which booksellers dig deep for every time the regulations are changed again – having to once more be spent to reinvent the shape of their shops and how to continue selling.”

Kate Skipper, chief operating officer of Waterstones, said: “News of the move to Tier 4 in London and areas of the south-east and a new lockdown in Wales is extremely disappointing.  To have to close many of our shops, once again, and during the last crucial days before Christmas will have a significant impact on trade.”

Recent News

29May
Agatha Christie “teaches” again through AI

Agatha Christie “teaches” again through AI

There has been a mixed reaction to BBC Maestro’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agatha Christie which sees the world’s most famous crime novelist ‘teaching’ the tricks of her trade to would-be crime writers.  Some have hailed it as wonderfully creative, others as “a bit Frankenstein”. According to the Bookseller, an actor, whose face and voice have […]

29May
Al-Sayyab’s House to Become Literary Museum

Al-Sayyab’s House to Become Literary Museum

A significant project to rehabilitate the historic house of iconic Iraqi poet Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab in Basra was launched this month. The initiative aims to transform the residence in Jaykur, Abu Al-Khaseeb, into a literary museum dedicated to the pioneer of poetic modernism. The Iraqi Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities announced the project in […]

29May
2025 Women’s Prize Winner to Be Named in June

2025 Women’s Prize Winner to Be Named in June

The Women’s Prize has announced its shortlist for fiction, featuring works that explore personal freedom, the search for identity, and the tension between Western values and cultural traditions. New voices feature heavily on the shortlist, with four of the six entrants being debut novelists. They are Aria Aber, Sanam Mahloudji, Nussaibah Younis and Vale van […]

Related Posts

Al-Sayyab’s House to Become Literary Museum

Al-Sayyab’s House to Become Literary Museum

A significant project to rehabilitate the historic house of iconic Iraqi poet Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab in Basra was launched this month. The initiative aims to transform the residence in Jaykur, Abu Al-Khaseeb, into a literary museum dedicated to the pioneer of poetic...

2025 Women’s Prize Winner to Be Named in June

2025 Women’s Prize Winner to Be Named in June

The Women’s Prize has announced its shortlist for fiction, featuring works that explore personal freedom, the search for identity, and the tension between Western values and cultural traditions. New voices feature heavily on the shortlist, with four of the six...

Penguin Books Launches 90 Mini-Libraries

Penguin Books Launches 90 Mini-Libraries

The UK’s largest book publisher has announced plans to install dozens of mini-libraries across the country as part of its 90th birthday celebrations. Penguin Books has announced it will install a series of book boxes, which it is calling "90 Little Book Stops", in...

Previous Next
Close
Test Caption
Test Description goes like this

Deprecated: Directive 'allow_url_include' is deprecated in Unknown on line 0