Indie Bookstore Day set

Independent Bookstore Day will be held Saturday, April 25, with stores across all 50 states planning one-day events in shops and online. (bookweb.org) The American Booksellers Association says this is the 13th annual event and calls it the largest yet, with more than 2,000 bookstores signed up nationwide in 2026. Publishers Weekly reported last week that participation is up from about 1,600 stores in 2025. (bookweb.org; publishersweekly.com) Independent Bookstore Day is scheduled for the last Saturday in April, and the ABA says stores will mark it with in-store events, online promotions, and limited-edition merchandise available only through participating indies. (bookweb.org; bookweb.org) That means the day works less like a single national sale and more like hundreds of local events at once. In Chicago, organizers are again running a Chicagoland bookstore crawl, while Brooklyn’s crawl stretches from April 18 through April 25 and ends with an afterparty at the Center for Fiction. (chilovebooks.com; visitbrooklyn.nyc) Washington, D.C., has its own April 25 crawl, with participants encouraged to build their own route among area stores between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Some shops are tying gifts and raffles to how many stops readers make in a day. (eventbrite.com; lostcitybookstore.com) In Lompoc, California, Chapter Two Bookstore plans to extend its Saturday hours to 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. for the event, according to local coverage. The store is joining the national promotion as neighborhood booksellers use the day to drive foot traffic and highlight local ownership. (santamariatimes.com) The event began in 2013 and has stayed fixed on the same late-April slot as independent stores built annual traditions around it. By 2026, organizers are pitching it as a coast-to-coast draw built on exclusives, author events, story times, contests, and store-specific programming. (bookweb.org; chilovebooks.com) For readers, the calendar is simple: Saturday, April 25 is the day to show up early, check local store plans, and expect each shop to be doing something different. (bookweb.org; bookweb.org)