The European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF), organisation representing booksellers associations from across Europe and worldwide, is issuing the following statement: 

Last Friday, 29 May, legendary bookstores among the community of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery readers, Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's, were burnt to the ground in Minneapolis, United States, during the civil unrest. EIBF deeply regrets and strongly condemns such actions of violence, which resulted in the loss of unique resources and cultural material housed in these independent bookstores. 

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The EIBF co-President Jean-Luc Treutenaere said in a statement: “I was deeply shocked to read that Uncle Hugo’s science fiction and Uncle Edgar’s mystery bookstores have been burnt down and destroyed by flames in the ongoing unrest in Minneapolis and many other places across the United States. I know that many other bookstores have been impacted by these events and I want to express my concern and support to all booksellers. Bookstores have always been a place for education, culture, and entertainment and booksellers encourage freedom of expression.”

Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental human rights and booksellers offer access to material that can provide insights into sensitive topics. This is especially relevant in these times, when human rights are under threat. Many booksellers and bookstores across the United States, but also around the world, have took a stand against racism, and are showing support for the protests over police violence against black people, and other minorities and at-risk groups. Bookstores are offering safe spaces for sharing one’s opinions and thoughts. Some bookstores in the US have provided first aid, promoted reading lists on antiracism books, and donated a portion of sales to organisations fighting mass incarceration. 

Booksellers offer a critical contribution and support to local communities, so the perpetrated looting and intentional damaging of bookstores is even more shocking and striking. It is important we stand together against police brutality, and against racism, violence, and hatred. By ensuring access to literature and wider material to educate why these issues need to be addressed, we can build a more inclusive and united world. We can only accomplish this by having more, and not less, bookstores around the world. 

Sharing positive and successful stories from the bookselling sector, celebrating the innovation, resilience, and resourcefulness of booksellers from across the world

Bookselling community is quite large and diverse, but predominantly it consists of small- and medium-sized businesses. These include brick and mortar bookshops, online bookshops, independent bookshops, and chains. Through providing access to literature and culture, contributing to financial sustainability in their local areas, and helping to improve reading outcomes for all, booksellers are an integral part of their local communities. However, they are also competing for their customers’ attention with large online retailers, which have resources to completely re-shape the market, to the detriment of local communities. 

Celebrating the innovation, resilience, and resourcefulness of booksellers 

We’re launching a new campaign to highlight the successes of these small- and medium-sized businesses, which were really in the spotlight during the Coronavirus outbreak. Despite being forced to close their doors to customers, booksellers found multitude of different ways to continue engaging with their customers, and keep providing their local communities with access to books and culture.  

Our campaign aims to highlight different activities and initiatives from the wider bookselling industry, thus raising awareness of why bookshops are essential to our lives. Some of these initiatives have been running for a while, while others have been launched specifically to help booksellers engage with their communities during the Coronavirus outbreak. 

Social media material

Flore Gautron, owner of the Florilège Librairie in France, explains how a board game helped her customers see a funny side of hygiene regulations (view and share posts on Twitter and Facebook)

Romanian booksellers Oana Doboși and Raluca Selejanexplain how they decided to build their online store around the idea of travelling with books - during a time when their La Două Bufniţe bookshop was closed due to the pandemic (view and share posts on Twitter and Facebook)

During Coronavirus outbreak, the English Bookshop in Uppsala organised an innovative auction of books– engaging with their followers and bringing joy to winners across Europe. Co-founder Jan Smedh explains their approach (view and share posts on Twitter and Facebook)

“Being able to connect grandparents with their grandchildren through books during lockdown was something that really touched us,” Trish Hennessy, owner of the Halfway up the Stairs children’s bookshop in Ireland, discusses how an initiative started during #COVID19 lockdown has transformed the business, continuing even after restrictions eased (view and share posts on Twitter and Facebook).

Nic Bottomley, co-owner of Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights bookshop in UK, discusses environmentally friendly initiatives booksellers can adopt, and how the #COVID19 pandemic might accelerate the adoption of #green activities through the book industry (view and share posts on Twitter and Facebook). 

Speaking at an EIBF webinar in May 2020, Iris Hunscheid from Buchhandlung Hoffmann highlighted the importance of the connection between bookshops and local customers: “The smaller the bookshops are, the closer is their connection to customers.” (view and share posts on Twitter and Facebook)

View and download all multimedia material for social channels. 

Cover photo: (c) Halfway up the Stairs children’s bookshop in Ireland

EIBF co-President Fabian Paagman participates in an online debate on the impact of Coronavirus pandemic on the book chain 

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the book sector around the world. International Publishers Association hosted an online discussion with representatives from across the book chain to highlight how the pandemic has impacted the sector under the title ‘From Author to Bookshop: Coronavirus and the Publishing Chain’. 

EIBF co-President Fabian Paagman joined the debate, together with the President of the International Publishers Association Hugo Setzer and Chair of the International Authors Forum John Degen. The debate was moderated by Porter Anderson, Editor in chief of Publishing Perspectives. 

The impacts on bookselling industry are enormous 

Booksellers are in a vulnerable position, on one hand standing at the end of the book chain, but at the same time, they are at the forefront of the customer relationship. Thus, they are directly impacted and affected by a change in consumer behaviour, which happened almost instantly when the lockdowns were announced in various countries. 

Fabian highlighted the struggles many booksellers are facing during the discussion: “This is affecting booksellers in ways they have never experienced before. All of a sudden, they have to not only be innovative and think of new business models, but also have to find practical ways of implementing health and hygiene regulations and serve customers in totally different ways than what they are used to.” 

Celebrating the innovation and empathy 

While this is a complex situation, where to certain extent we have to learn as we go, we have seen numerous innovative initiatives implemented by the booksellers to continue supporting and engaging with their communities. On the other hand, we have also seen a huge amount of empathy from readers and customers, making huge efforts and being willing to find ways and reach out bookshops, especially to small and independent bookshops.  

“We see this not just in pick up and book deliveries that started during lockdown, but also in the shift to online sales that benefitted those same indie bookshops. We are hoping that we can keep that momentum going and for people to find ways to independent brick and mortar stores,” said Fabian. 

Improved collaboration

Fabian also highlighted support booksellers have received from the book sector, from authors hosting online readings and helping to deliver books to customers, to publishers who have announced bookstore assistance programmes.

The speakers all agreed that this crisis has brought them all together. It is vital this collaboration continues to help mitigate any delayed effects further down the line. 

Missed the event? 

Watch the recording here.  
 

As the EU has started discussing the proposed recovery plan, 94 organisations from across Europe’s cultural and creative sectors are uniting their voices to alert EU leaders: our sector needs strong and systemic support measures to recover from this crisis.

As it is now well understood, the cultural and creative world is one of the first and hardest hit by the crisis.

According to the Commission’s own estimates, some parts of our sector – which accounts for €509bn in value added to GDP and over 12 million full-time jobs - are expected to lose up to 80% of their turnover in the 2nd quarter of 2020.

We have a higher than average percentage of self-employed workers, freelancers, micro-businesses and youth employment, which makes us particularly vulnerable in times of crisis.

As the European economy is slowly restarting, it is far from business as usual. Cultural actors are gradually resuming their activities, but all have to implement strict safety rules which means they won’t be operating at full capacity for the foreseeable future and are therefore facing challenging economic decisions. From individual creators and creative workers all the way to big production and media companies, the whole value chain is impacted.

And yet the recovery package announced by the Commission on 27 May does not reflect the reality of the cultural and creative sector, despite the encouraging messages by the Commission and the strong position taken by the European Parliament. The proposal on the table falls way short of our sector’s expectations:

     •     Despite being identified as one of 14 of the hardest hit ecosystems, there is neither a sector specific instrument for culture, nor a clear indication on whether or how we can benefit from different instruments. The section on REACT-EU in the Commission’s Communication refers to culture, but there is no guarantee that we will receive appropriate support.

     •     As for Creative Europe, the EU’s only programme specifically dedicated to the cultural and creative sector, the Commission’s announcement is a missed opportunity and a real disappointment. Along with the budget dedicated to education and youth, the budget dedicated to culture is the only one to decrease compared to the Commission’s own 2018 proposal, and it is a far cry from the European parliament’ position2 . Quite ironic for a recovery plan named “Next Generation EU”.

To bring the EU’s support for our sector to a level that is commensurate with its contribution to the EU’s economy and its citizens’ wellbeing, we call on Member States and the European Parliament:

     •     To push for a substantial increase of the Creative Europe budget. We fully support the European Parliament’s proposal for a budget of €2.8bn.

     •     To guarantee that the entire sector can benefit appropriately from the recovery plan’s various instruments.

Let’s invest in culture to show the EU’s #NextGeneration that we really care about their future!

Find the full letter in the attachment. 

Ahead of the European Council meeting next 17th July and as a follow up to the joint letter signed by over 90 organisations in the cultural and creative sector last month, 45 renowned European artists, such as author Nina George, singer-songwriter Björk and performance artist Marina Abramovic among others, have co-signed a letter to Member States leaders, asking them to provide appropriate funding for the recovery and long-term sustainability of the cultural sector.

European culture is in the midst of a crisis. How decision-makers choose to respond now will set the scene for the next decade of cultural and creative life in our union.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, theatres, cinemas, music halls, museums and other venues of cultural expression have remained closed. Many of those venues will simply not reopen.

The result has been to squeeze the life out of the cultural and creative sectors, exacerbating the desperately perilous situation in which culture, the arts and the creative sectors at large find themselves.

Cultural and creative sectors are Europe’s third largest employer. Meaning the economic consequences of a stagnant sector have reached far beyond the realm of culture.

But, despite such a diminished cultural landscape, it is to culture that we have all turned during this time of great personal and societal adversity. It is music that has brought us together on balconies, films and TV series that have entertained us, documentaries, books, performances, pieces of art that have all truly comforted us in our solitude and helped us to escape intellectually and creatively.

Europe’s most treasured asset is our culture. It is a culture united in its diversity, a culture that draws in millions of people from all over the world every single month.

Cultural expression in all its diversity is at the heart of what is meant to be European.

Despite strong messages from leaders of the European Union that our sectors would be firmly supported, the current proposals for a recovery plan and a European budget strangely fail to consider the needs of the cultural and creative sectors.

As creators and professionals from the sector, we call on the EU leaders to be bold and to invest in culture and the arts, to invest in all our creative futures.

We need a plan that revives our cultural ecosystem and inspires the next generation of Europeans.

This means providing the financial resources at a level which will allow art, culture, cultural and creative enterprises, creators and creative workers to continue their work, to survive and thrive into the future.

This is an opportunity for the EU to amply demonstrate that it can honour its values. The time is now for Europe to be ambitious and invest in its creative future.

Culture is the fertile soil out of which Europe’s next generation will unite and flourish. Let’s show Europe’s next generations what kind of future we want to offer them!

List of signatories

1. Aga Zaryan, jazz vocalist (PL)
2. Agnieszka Holland, filmmaker (PL)
3. Agustín Almodóvar, producer (ES)
4. Alberto Guijarro, director of Primavera Sound and Sala Apolo (ES)
5. Alberto Iglesias, film music composer (ES)
6. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, contemporary dance choreographer (BE)
7. Benny Andersson, musician, composer (SE)
8. Bernie Sherlock, conductor (IE)
9. Björk, singer-songwriter (IS)
10. Charles Sturridge, filmmaker (UK)
11. Dame Evelyn Glennie, percussionist and composer (UK)
12. Daniel Buren, conceptual visual artist (FR)
13. Isabel Coixet, filmmaker (ES)
14. István Szabó, filmmaker (HU)
15. Ivo van Hove, theatre director (NL/BE)
16. Jaco Van Dormael, filmmaker (BE)
17. Jean-Michel Jarre, electronic music pioneer, musician (FR)
18. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, filmmakers (BE)
19. Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, filmmaker (FR)
20. Joan Fontcuberta, conceptual artist and photographer (ES)
21. Lisa Kaindé Diaz Zayas and Naomi Diaz Zayas - IBEYI, singers, songwriters, and music composers (FR)
22. Marian Urban, Scriptwriter and Film Producer (SK)
23. Marina Abramović, performance artist (US/SRB)
24. Martin Šulík, Film Director and Film Producer (SK)
25. Maryla Rodowicz, singer (PL) 
26. Michał Urbaniak, musician and composer (PL)
27. Milo Rau, theatre director (BE/CH) 
28. Mirga Grazinyte, conductor (LT/UK)
29. MØ, singer, songwriter, and record producer (DK)
30. Moritz Eggert, composer (DE)
31. Nele Neuhaus, writer (DE)
32. Nicola Campogrande, composer (IT)
33. Nina Bouraoui, writer (FR)
34. Nina George, writer (DE)
35. Olga Neuwirth, composer (AT)
36. Olivier Guez, writer (FR)
37. Paul Dujardin, CEO & artistic director of BOZAR (BE)
38. Phil Manzanera, composer, guitarist (UK)
39. Salvador Sobral, musician (PT)
40. Sebastian Fitzek, writer (DE)
41. Stijn Coninx, film director (BE)
42. Thomas Anargyros, producer (FR)
43. Tiago Rodrigues, writer, director, artistic director Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (PT)
44. Tim Etchells, artistic director, artist, writer (UK)
45. Yuval Weinberg, conductor (IL/DE)

Find the full letter in the attachment. 

On Thursday, 3 September, tune in to the virtual book conference in Moscow 

EIBF Director Julie Belgrado will join a panel event during the Moscow's International Book Conference this Thursday, 3 September. Under the theme of "Recovery after the pandemic: Strategies for survival and focusing support", the virtual conference will bring together stakeholders from the global book sector, including booksellers, publishers, and authors. 

Julie will join the second panel discussion on digitalisation and innovation as the main tools for the restoration of the book industry, where she will share best practice examples for restoring communication with readers following the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Join in

The conference will be livestreamed from 2pm local time (1pm CEST) here, in English and with simultaneous translation into Russian. 

Spotlighting Coronavirus recovery at recent international book conference in Moscow 

EIBF director Julie Belgrado spoke at a digital panel event during the Moscow’s International Book Conference last Thursday, 3 September. The event brought together stakeholders from across the book sector, including publishers, booksellers, and representatives of various national and international book associations and federations, to discuss Coronavirus recovery and strategies for development of the book industry. 

Our director took part in the second panel discussion on digitalisation and innovation as the main tools for the restoration of the book industry, where she shared best practice examples for restoring communication with readers following the COVID-19 pandemic.

In her talk, Julie highlighted the severe impact of Coronavirus on the bookselling sector, with bookshops in many countries having to close and physical sales drastically declining. As the same time, booksellers saw a huge jump in online sales, however, this was detrimental to shops that didn’t have online presence. “It’s true that booksellers suffered a lot, and as many other businesses, they had to quickly adapt to the changing environment. During the pandemic, we have seen a lot of innovativeness, resilience and resourcefulness coming from the booksellers. And through that, we have seen how essential booksellers are to the community they are part of.”  

Pandemic as an accelerator for change 

Due to constantly changing customer demand, booksellers had to be very responsive and tailor their offer to customers: from hosting digital events with authors and reading children’s books online to help entertain children staying at home, to increasing supplies of games and puzzles. Many booksellers who didn’t have an online presence, took orders through email, phone, and/or social media channels, while also working on building their websites. As our director said: “During this time, the pandemic served as an accelerator for change, especially in regards to online sales. In that way, booksellers never really lost contact with their readers and communities.” 

Working together 

During national lockdowns, many governments and booksellers associations launched new or extensively promoted existing reading campaigns, highlighting the importance of reading, books, and culture. This helped in raising awareness of reading and books as activities that can be done while staying at home. 

"Book industry is a resilient industry - it has been here for many years, and it will be here for many more. We saw this during the pandemic as well, people turned to books, culture, and reading." Julie concluded her presentation by highlighting the important contribution of booksellers to their local communities, in ensuring continued access to books, literature and culture for all. 

Missed the talk?

Watch Julie’s presentation here (from 30.50 to 44.07) and find the slides in the attachment below. Catch up with the whole panel here (in English and Russian). 
 

We submitted EIBF’s contribution to the consultations on the Digital Services Act and the New Competition Tool

Following an open call for public consultation, we recently contributed to the inquiry on the Digital Services Act and the New Competition Tool. In our input, we expressed the view of booksellers on these important topics. The EU legislation being drafted through these will significantly shape the role and position of large online platforms acting as gatekeepers to the digital marketplaces, as well as help regulate competition risks and concerns.

Read EIBF's full contribution below. 

The EUPL 2020 ceremony to be help online later in the year due to health risk connected to the Coronavirus pandemic

The Consortium comprised of the European Writers’ Council (EWC), the Federation of European Publishers (FEP) and the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF), in charge of running the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL), has decided – together with the Creative Europe program – to change the EUPL 2020 award ceremony due to take place on 29 September in Brussels to an online event. We believe it is the right course of action to protect and safeguard the health and safety of our 2020 laureates and all attendees of the event.

The digital ceremony of the EUPL 2020 will be held later this year and will be an occasion to celebrate and promote our 13 laureates of the year. Before then, we are happy to offer our audiences an opportunity to meet the works of our 2020 laureates through the EUPL 2020 Anthology! This anthology, featuring excerpts from the winning books of the year in both original versions and English translations, will be freely available on the EUPL website from 29 September. Physical copies will also be possible to order through the Consortium. In addition, we recommend browsing the EUPL website to discover our exceptional laureates and their works and to get in the mood for the equally special online ceremony.

Finally, we are happy to announce that our 2020 laureates will participate at the Frankfurt Book Fair’s 2020 digital programme on 17 October, during the BookFest Digital online broadcast. This will enable our winning authors and their works to gain the international exposure they very much deserve.

Read the full statement here.