SUBSCRIBE | CURRENT ISSUE | SUBMIT A REVIEW | PUBLISHER INFO

At the recent Annual Meeting it was reported that The Southern Bookseller Review had a stellar year. The newsletter's 6K subscriber list is growing steadily, and engagement in the form of open rates and click-through rates are 40% and 10 range, respectively.

In 2022 SIBA began sending a monthly topic-oriented "special issue," which has been very well received, September's special edition focused on Hispanic Heritage Month and bookseller reviews of books by Latinx writers. October's special edition will be focused on spooky and scary stories.

SBR publishes between 8-12 new reviews each week on its website and specifically chooses reviews that show the full range of bookseller reading tastes: Fiction, Nonfiction, Young Adult, and Children's. In July SBR also started highlighting reviews of Graphic Novels as their own category in the newsletter. On June 20, SBR posted its 1000th bookseller review.

As of this past Sunday, 1153 bookseller reviews from 71 reviewing stores have been posted to the SBR website. SIBA's most prolific reviewing stores:

Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, NC
Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC
Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, VA
The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, NC
Avid Bookshop in Athens, GA

Reviewing stores can embed their SBR reviews on their own websites as a "staff picks" section which will always show the five most recent store reviews published on SBR. There are currently five SIBA stores running their SBR reviews on their store websites.

Because one of SBR's primary goals is to amplify Southern independent bookstores to the reading public and to the book industry, SIBA also coordinates newly posted SBR reviews with its social media. It highlights a "weekend read" for both adults and kids and tags the reviewing store, the publisher, and the author. It also shares the weekly "Book Buzz" post -- focused on a title that has received 3 or more reviews from SIBA booksellers. And SIBA also ties in posts with important literary news, where applicable, such as recent posts of bookseller reviews of titles on the National Book Award long list, or link to bookseller reviews of books by indigenous writers which went out on Indigenous Peoples Day.