36 Days until Indie Bookstore Day!

Sign-ups to participate close in 11 days on March 31 through your Member Dashboard.* You must be a logged-in ABA member** to access the form. If you do not know your login credentials please email us at [email protected].  

*If you have ordered exclusives or signed up already, you do not need to complete this form again.

**Independent Bookstore Day is open to those who are members of ABA, as well as their regional booksellers association. If you have not renewed your membership for 2026, please do so now, or your store will not be included on the participating store map.

Check out the Independent Bookstore Day BookWeb page for additional details as well as the planning guide for an additional resource.

What's New:

Spirit Week Themes

Starting Monday, April 20, join fellow booksellers for Independent Bookstore Day Spirit Week! Feel free to share the digital assets, use the hashtag #BookstoreSpiritWeek, and take part in the daily themes leading up to Indie Bookstore Day on April 25. Here are the Spirit Week holidays:

Continue Submitting Your Plans.

We’ve started adding store plans to the IndieBound blog and will link it on the IndieBound Indie Bookstore Day map, including bookstore crawls and passport programs. These pages are the go-to links we share throughout April for customers to plan out where they’ll be celebrating Indie Bookstore Day!

If you’re looking for ideas, check out last year’s events from participating bookstores and the replay of February’s ShopTalk: Making the Most of Indie Bookstore Day.

March To-Dos:

Market Indie Bookstore Day.
Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day with our bookstore and Libro.fm on Saturday, April 25th!
  • Promote Libro.fm’s sales and offers
    • Link: The link for bookstores to share is: Libro.fm/ibd
    • Materials: All print and digital materials will be in this Google Drive with more to be added.
    • Sale: Indie Bookshop Appreciation Sale will run April 20–26, with bestselling audiobooks on sale and have a new member offer for bookstores to share.
  • Mention the day and any details in your newsletter and on social media. Make your announcement using the digital assets and exclusive item images on BookWeb. 
  • If you ordered the free Indie Bookstore Day bookmarks, they will arrive in your March Box Mailing.
  • List special events in your events calendar.

Add exclusives to your IndieCommerce 1.0 or 2.0 sites.

  • Join a member of the IndieCommerce team for a live, online instructional webinar on March 25 or 31 (see “Key Dates to Know” below for registration). They will cover how to manage the exclusive product listings and other content for the event, displaying on-hand quantities, adjusting the on-sale date and time for products, managing orders through your IndieCommerce/IndieLite site, and other resources available.
  • A Help Document will be made available for adding exclusives as well.

Send a Press Release to your local media.

  • Download the template, enter your specific bookstore information (we provided examples!), and you’re ready to send it off.
  • Arrange for media coverage — radio, newspapers, websites — in your area if possible.

Join the Global Book Crawl. 

Keep an eye out for your Ingram Order on ipage.

Key Dates to Know:

  • NEW! March 25, 2:00 pm ET: IndieCommerce 2.0 Webinar
  • NEW! March 31, 2:00 pm ET: IndieCommerce 1.0 Webinar
  • March 31, 2026: Indie Bookstore Day 2026 General Participation Form closes through your Member Dashboard. (Stores that didn’t order exclusive items can sign up to participate until this date.)
  • April 3, 2026: Indie Bookstore Day Searchable Map goes live on IndieBound
  • Mid-April, 2026: All exclusives ship to bookstores
  • April 20–24, 2026: Indie Bookstore Day Spirit Week
  • April 25, 2026, the last Saturday in April: Independent Bookstore Day

Stay tuned for future updates via our newsletters. Missed an issue of the Indie Bookstore Day Newsletter? Catch up on them all on BookWeb.

Questions? Contact Courtney Wallace, Senior Marketing Manager at [email protected].

Independent Bookstore Day
American Booksellers Association
Copyright 2026
[email protected]

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