‘Resilience, Innovation and Sustainability for the Enhancement of Bookselling’, or RISE Bookselling in short, is a three-year, EU co-funded programme organised by EIBF. Since its launch in early 2022, RISE Bookselling has been working to create a real network of international and European booksellers, bringing them closer together while upscaling their resilience by providing them with key tools and insights they can put into practice in their shop.
Through RISE Booksellers Exchange Programme, participants spend a few days at a foreign colleague’s bookshop, learning about national trade specificities and about how their counterparts handle their daily business on the ground. The RISE support programme to attend international/national sectorial events enables booksellers to attend events such as Frankfurt Book Fair or BolognaBookPlus & Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Participants are granted the opportunity to join their colleagues and engage with other professionals and experts from the industry on various important topics within the trade and thus raise visibility of the wider book chain. Through RISE Bookselling activities, new friendships have been formed, new business partnerships established and much knowledge has been exchanged across borders.
But that is not all that RISE Bookselling can offer the bookselling community. The Let’s Talk bookselling podcast series gives booksellers a platform to share best practices and what they do best across their own borders. The podcasts offer listeners new insights into various aspects of the bookselling industry. The ‘Industry Insights’ research papers analyse key issues for the bookselling sector by collecting information from several network members’ countries, thus improving the understanding of important sectorial issues beyond national borders. Moreover, RISE Bookselling also represents and advocates on behalf of the bookselling sector towards policy-makers and the wider public. Following two workshop series on sector specific topics, advocacy campaigns will be launched. The two studies which will be produced as result of the campaigns will be essential assets to mobilise effective support and deliver policy change at sectoral, political and public societal levels.
RISE Bookselling Conference 2023
RISE Bookselling Conference 2023 symbolized and embodied the spirit and the objectives of the RISE Bookselling programme: on 19-20 March 2023, the first European and international bookselling conference of its kind to ever take place gathered up to 250 booksellers and key stakeholders of the book sector (authors, publishers, distributors etc.) from all over the world in one place, allowing them to meet, network and discuss priority topics for the book sector. Delegates from over 20 countries enjoyed a packed programme of panels covering a wide range of priority topics for the book trade such as sustainability and green bookselling, inclusion and representation, and innovation in the trade; and brilliant keynotes which inspired, moved and amused the audience. The milestone event reinforced cross-border bookselling, created a sense of belonging to an international community that abides by European values, and facilitated a better understanding among European booksellers.
On our dedicated Conference page, you can watch highlights from our inaugural conference, browse through our photo gallery, read a recap of the conference and download some of the presentations and other workshop materials.
The second edition of the RISE Bookselling Conference will take place in Lisbon, Portugal on 17-18 March 2024.
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