American Booksellers for Free Expression’s (ABFE) new toolkit helps bookstores navigate the challenges that come with being engaged, civic spaces.

While a charged climate can tempt stores to restrict their curation, programming, or speech, being prepared can give you other options. Our new toolkit will help you prepare for curation complaints, harassment, protests, and event disruption with accessible readiness checklists. 

We’ll also be hosting a webinar about this new toolkit. Register now for ABFE’s Toolkit Webinar on April 10 at 3:00 pm ET.

If you’re looking to start (or expand) your store’s collections of books in Spanish, Books in Spanish: A Bookseller’s Guide has everything you need to know!

This guide covers evaluating your store's space and budget for a Spanish section, assessing your community’s needs, and selecting titles! It also includes links for plenty of other resources to help you build your Spanish section. 

If you have not already, sign up now to participate and appear on the Indie Bookstore Day map.

Here are a few other things you can do in March to prepare:

• Start marketing Indie Bookstore Day! Mention it in your newsletter and on social media and post teasers of any exclusive items you’ll have.
• Add exclusives to your IndieCommerce or IndieLite sites.
  

Check out the Indie Bookstore Day Planning Guide on BookWeb for more details and Indie Bookstore Day ideas.

AbstractbyRabrams has partnered with ABA to offer discounts to ABA member stores!

AbstractbyRabrams is an woman- and queer-owned, eco-friendly shop featuring unique abstract art that offers a range of products including greeting cards, paintings, notebooks, stickers, and fun home décor items. The shop specializes in subtle pride art, with a focus on abstract pride paintings, stickers and greeting cards celebrating diversity and inclusion.

Visit the Business Services page on BookWeb to learn more.

Ahmad Saber is the author of Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions, a Winter/Spring 2026 Indies Introduce Kids’ selection. Here, Saber and Elisa McIntosh of The Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid, NY, discuss Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions.

You can also visit the ABA podcast, BookED, to listen to this interview.

Here is the Indie SciFi/Fantasy Bestseller List, based on sales at independent bookstores nationwide for the eight-week period ending March 8.

We love sharing pictures of our member stores on our social media, so we’ve made it easier than ever for you to send in your photos!

Fill out this Google form for a chance to be featured on our ABA socials. Add up to five photos, and don’t forget to tell us a little bit about your store!

Last week, the Authors Guild launched their new Human Authored certification program.

This certification is available to all authors with books published in the US, regardless of whether or not they are Authors Guild members. The Authors Guild will also be working directly with publishers to issue certifications in bulk.

This program is a direct response to the increasing number of AI-generated books. You can find more details on the program and FAQs on the Authors Guild website.