Independent bookstores are multiplying across the United States, even as many people continue to believe they are disappearing. Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association (ABA), often encounters strangers expressing sympathy when they learn of her role, assuming bookstores are a dying breed.
"It's all so funny," she says. "When I tell them I run the trade association for independent stores, they'll say, 'It's just so sad that they're disappearing.' I don't think they're really keeping track, or they just know about a store that closed or heard about one closing."
Resurgence of Independent Bookstores
The decline of physical bookstores remains entrenched in popular culture, as illustrated by a line in The Devil Wears Prada 2 where a character laments that bookstores are "getting downsized and consolidated." However, the decline ended years ago. The latest ABA figures show independent stores expanding at a pace unseen this century. Membership grew by over 500 in the past year, reaching 3,417 stores (at 3,783 locations), nearly triple the number from a decade ago and the highest since the late 1990s.
New members include a diverse range of stores: general interest shops like Hey Books! in San Diego; mobile stores such as the Wandering Quills Bookshop in Westerville, Ohio; and pop-up stores like Banyan Books in St. Petersburg, Florida. Many cater to the current boom in romance, fantasy, and their hybrid, romantasy, with stores like the Spicy Librarian in Denver and Flutter Romance Bookstore in Austin, Texas, which promises "Where butterflies begin. And every story ends in happily-ever-after."
Passion and Community Drive Growth
Independent bookselling, rarely a path to wealth, attracts idealists: young people with a sense of mission, retirees starting anew, and mid-career professionals seeking change. "I think people want to realign their lives with their values," Hill observes.
In Wentzville, Missouri, 55-year-old Kelley Hartnett, a marketing consultant and copywriter, had long dreamed of running a bookstore. Despite her husband's concerns about competing with Amazon, she opened Double Dog Bookshop in 2025 as a mobile store, operating from a converted cargo trailer with her two Australian Cattle Dog mutts. She has since opened a storefront downtown. "For me, Double Dog is about maybe 50% books and 50% community," says Hartnett, who hopes to find a larger space for customers to gather. "People are craving connection, especially in-person connection. They're over the internet and virtual meetings and algorithms. It feels really healing."
Challenges Remain Despite Growth
Hill can joke about mistaken elegies for bookselling but notes that the state of independent stores is "precarious." Costs are high, and schools and libraries face budget cuts limiting purchases from local stores. Additionally, independent owners worry about a onetime competitor that itself seemed endangered: Barnes & Noble.
The superstore chain dominated in the 1980s and 1990s, causing hundreds—perhaps thousands—of independent closures. But by the 2010s, Amazon surpassed Barnes & Noble, leading to store closures and a struggle for survival until hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. bought it in 2019. Under CEO James Daunt, Barnes & Noble is expanding again, adding over 100 stores in two years. In Chicago, the owner of decade-old Volume Books blamed a new Barnes & Noble for putting her out of business. Hill adds that "even a small decrease in sales can make or break a bookstore's year in an industry with paper-thin margins."
Daunt denies any intent to harm independents, saying it's not in his "DNA." "I'm an independent seller myself," he notes, citing his founding of Daunt Books in London and his role as managing director of Waterstones. "I never thought of the market as finite."
The owners of The Book Loft Oak Park, another Chicago-area store that opened last summer, admit some nerves about a nearby Barnes & Noble opening soon. But Heather Nelson and Sophie Schauer Eldred hope the stores complement each other. "We're hoping people whose curiosity is piqued by the new Barnes and Noble will walk down the street," Schauer Eldred said, "and pop into our bookstore."
