2025 was another banner year for independent bookstores. ABA’s membership grew by 19%, and 605 new brick-and-mortar, pop-up, and mobile stores opened across the US. The majority of stores also reported year-over-year increases in sales for 2025 over 2024. These numbers are part of some incredible momentum for the indies; ABA membership has grown 151% the past 6 years.
2025 was also the most challenging year for indies on record as our members faced rising costs, tariffs, the impact of ICE and the National Guard in communities, discriminatory laws, the impact of climate change, book bans and challenges, and free speech harassment in addition to the perennial challenges of thin margins and Amazon’s monopoly and monopolistic chokehold on our industry.
Despite these challenges the independent bookstore channel grew, sales were up, and the stores continued to do the important work they do in the world: countering school budget cuts, book challenges, and national book legislation that threatened the right to read, deterred access to books, and attempted to silence LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC stories; providing an antidote for the loneliness epidemic; championing diverse and debut authors; contributing to the local economy; and putting books in readers’ hands that could change their lives.
For our part, ABA continued in our mission to help independent bookstores survive and thrive. Our foundation was strong — a committed and diverse team; a clean audit from an independent auditor; 80% of our resources dedicated to programming; all while on budget — and we exceeded our Key Performance Indicator benchmarks with increased participation in our Winter Institute, the book industry’s largest conference; ABACUS, ABA’s financial benchmarking survey and report; sales reporting to BookScan and regional/national bestseller lists; Batch, the industry payment platform that frees booksellers up to sell books; Banned Books Week; and Independent Bookstore Day, our annual celebration of independent bookstores. Stores also continued to benefit from ABA’s emphasis on financials: financial education, ABACUS workshops, one-on-one financial coaching, and publisher advocacy efforts like Indies First.
In 2025 ABA expanded our business discounts for members, revamped our education for Institutes to better serve members’ needs, added a concierge to BookWeb.org to help members find what they need, launched the first IGNITE, a pre-con for BIPOC booksellers ahead of Winter Institute, and PATHWAYS, a pre-conference gathering for BIPOC booksellers ahead of Children’s Institute; featured an exhibit on the history of Black-owned bookstores at Wi2025 in Denver; and renewed our important partnership with League of Women Voters.
ABA’s free expression team was busier than ever in 2025. We greatly expanded our anti-censorship advocacy, supporting freedom to read bills (in Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island), helping quash censorship bills (in Florida, Texas, New Hampshire, and elsewhere), offering a total of 18 free expression education sessions over 12 months (half in-person, half online), supported dozens of stores facing intimidation and threats, and produced new resources like our curation policy and staff training and customer privacy policy guidelines.
On the advocacy front, ABA continued lobbying for the Credit Card Competition Act, legislation that would end the Mastercard/Visa duopoly by allowing competitors into the market to help lower swipe fees. We also supported federal ADA legislation to stop frivolous lawsuits aimed at small businesses that force them to settle for upwards of $20K. ABA is asking Congress to pass a law that clarifies ADA website regulations while also providing businesses with a grace period to fix compliance issues before facing litigation for damages. In addition, ABA continued its antitrust efforts. These efforts are ongoing and can’t always be shared publicly, but they included meeting twice with the Federal Trade Commission Chair’s office to discuss how price discrimination is impacting the bookselling industry.
IndieCommerce 2.0, ABA’s e-commerce platform for members, reached full momentum in 2025, with 90% of IndieCommerce 1.0 stores having successfully migrated by year-end. We continued to enhance the platform’s design and functionality, which included continuing to deploy security features to counter an increase in bot activity. We also helped stores optimize their e-commerce presence through one-on-one support and dedicated sessions at Winter Institute 2025 — efforts that ultimately culminated in a 21.52% increase in IndieCommerce sales over 2024.
ABA continued to be a lifeline for members faced with challenges. In 2025, we helped individual stores one-on-one with reorganizing debt; facing harassment; dealing with copyright disputes; quelching frivolous ADA compliance lawsuits; and liasoning with publishers on behalf of our members.
All of this was accomplished thanks to the incredible team of people who work for ABA. We continue to be motivated and inspired in our work by the amazing work of the independent bookstores we support. We visited 160 independent bookstores across the country and watched hundreds more online, witnessing firsthand their creativity, individuality, authenticity, resilience, and passion. It all adds up to a kind of alchemy that delivers magic that independent bookstore communities and customers know and love, as do we.
Looking forward, our industry is facing existential threats and disruption. But the history of independent bookstores is filled with stories of disruption and threats. We are confident that the passion, purpose, innovation, and resilience of independent bookstores not only ensures their long-term survival, but represents the future we all need. ABA will continue to mitigate risks and explore opportunities. We are honored to serve and support independent bookstores in their vital work.
—Allison K Hill, CEO