New Voices New Rooms, the joint convention of the New Atlantic Unbiased Booksellers Affiliation and the Southern Unbiased Booksellers Alliance, as soon as once more kicked off the autumn regional bookselling present season, attracting a document 580 attendees to the Marriott Marquis Lodge in downtown Atlanta, August 3-6.
NVNR was launched throughout the pandemic when NAIBA and SIBA mixed their conferences; this yr’s convention was the deepest foray but into SIBA territory. In keeping with organizers, this yr’s gathering drew 335 booksellers from 196 bookstores—up 9% from 2024; 199 booksellers have been first-time attendees. There have been 221 SIBA booksellers from 118 shops, and 114 NAIBA booksellers from 78 shops.
Booksellers got here from everywhere in the mid-Atlantic area and the South, hailing from as far north as upstate New York and as far southwest as New Orleans. For 3 days, they engaged in dialog about large image points like censorship and kids’s literacy, in addition to extra prosaic issues, like stock turns and damages. In fact, authors and ARCs are all the time an enormous draw on the regionals, and NVNR delivered, with appearances by 90 authors starting from luminaries like Silas Home, Jason Reynolds, and Angie Thomas to scores of lesser-known names.
This yr’s NVNR was not only a convention however a celebration of books, bookselling, and the liberty to learn. The opening occasion was the airing of the documentary, Banned Collectively, a couple of group of scholars who, with the assistance of their grownup allies, efficiently fought to return virtually 100 books that had been faraway from their college library cabinets.
Monday morning’s breakfast keynote, billed as “Heroes on the Entrance Traces of E-book Banning” and emceed by American Booksellers for Free Expression affiliate director Philomena Polefrone, featured two of these college students—Brea Parker and Kate Selvitelli—together with Christina Nosti, director of occasions and programming at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla. and Alison Rudolph, a former English trainer who’s co-owner of Rudolph Ladies in Westminster, Md.
“You possibly can put the best guide in the best fingers,” Polefrone instructed attendees. “And till educators, librarians, and authors have the protections they deserve, indie bookstores could also be one of the best lifeline some of us need to the books they should flourish.”
For SIBA booksellers, NVNR included celebrating the group’s fiftieth anniversary and its rebranding, with a brand depicting a solar rising from the pages of a guide, symbolizing booksellers’ resilience within the face of challenges. SIBA can also be celebrating phenomenal development: its present membership is 277 booksellers, up 18% over 2024. NAIBA, which is getting ready for govt director Eileen Dengler’s impending retirement, can also be celebrating development: the group counted 280 bookstore members in 2025, a 15% enhance over 2024.
Each bookseller PW spoke with reported a rise in gross sales this previous yr, though DJ Johnson, the proprietor of Baldwin & Co. in New Orleans, identified that whereas gross sales are up, prices have additionally elevated, in order that his revenue margins stay basically the identical. Nonetheless, Johnson says he’s “very assured sooner or later” of Baldwin & Co. and is happy in regards to the retailer’s new YouTube channel, which has already netted 20,000 subscribers and options the shop’s author-conversation podcast Baldwin Dialogues. Johnson mentioned that many purchasers come into the shop and check with the podcast. “Each bookstore must have a YouTube channel,” Johnson mentioned.
Bunnie Hilliard, proprietor of Courageous + Type Bookstore in Decatur, Ga., is reveling within the success of the shop’s Black Lady E-book Honest, cohosted by six Black ladies–owned Atlanta-area booksellers and held on Unbiased Bookstore Day final spring. The six shops intend to carry one other Black Lady E-book Honest throughout the holidays in addition to on Unbiased Bookstore Day 2026. Courageous + Type Books may even launch the Fantastically Black Kids’s E-book Competition this coming March on the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.
Julia Davis, the proprietor of the E-book Worm in Powder Springs, Ga., can also be celebrating the success of the Black Lady E-book Honest—however she she is even happier that 500 clients petitioned town to switch ongoing building that was obstructing entry to her retailer. “I watched a neighborhood come collectively in assist of a bookstore,” Davis mentioned.
Training classes get excessive marks
Whereas assembly authors and grabbing ARCs are all the time on NVNR booksellers’ agendas, a lot of the booksellers that PW spoke with mentioned that their favourite a part of NVNR this time round was the schooling element.
Jennifer Sauter-Worth, proprietor of Learn Early and Every day Learn in Arlington, Va., mentioned that she acquired rather a lot out of each session she attended, particularly one on methods to arrange kids’s guide festivals. Carrie Deming, the proprietor of Canine Eared Books in Palmyra, N.Y., described the schooling classes as “improbable,” and praised Polefrone for an illuminating presentation on navigating content-based assaults on one’s retailer. “It was an incredible session,” Deming mentioned. “I took two pages of notes. It hasn’t occurred to me, however I really feel prefer it’s solely a matter of time.”
Erin Caudill, head purchaser at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati and Lexington, Ky., discovered the classes on kids’s literacy and on bettering stock turns for extra profitability particularly precious. “The panelists gave me concrete concepts on what I can do,” she mentioned. Veronica Liu, CEO of Phrase Up Neighborhood Bookshop in New York Metropolis, additionally praised the session on stock turns, noting that “The session was standing-room-only as a result of it is an necessary problem for booksellers; all of us wish to cut back returns.”
Now in its third yr being held in individual, this yr’s NVNR acquired excessive marks from NAIBA and SIBA booksellers. Deming says that NVNR attracts “extra publishers and extra sidelines, and it is the primary present that every one my reps are at.” Extra importantly, although, “the extra booksellers you may speak to, the extra you study,” she says. Caudill identified that NVNR “brings so many individuals collectively, permitting the 2 organizations to do extra strong issues, just like the schooling. I deal with schooling relatively than the exhibit space, as a result of I do know I can speak to publishers at different instances.”
NVNR 2026 might be held in Baltimore; the date and venue haven’t but been confirmed.
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