The Rebound of Independent Bookshops ?

The publishing industry has been well described since many years with pionneering research of Coser (1982), Schiffrin (2000) and Thompson (2008). But most of this work is dedicated to the english language publishing industry and it is mainly focused on publishers and their strategy. In this view, digital strategy with the so-called 'ebook revolution' remains an issue particularly sensitive for publishers as some academic papers have stated (Benghozi, 2021 and Thompson, 2021). Digital disruption is always expected : yesterday it was the ebook, tomorrow it could be the audio book. The transformation of the entire book business affects readers, writers, publishers, consumers, distributors, sellers and retailers. In regards to the book retail, changes are affecting the way consumers engage with online sellers, big corporations and local bookstores. Book selling can be considered as a blind spot of the research agenda about book industry. This is this gap we would like to fill in, furthermore in an european based approach. Not only we will investigate each country, but we will also build a useful comparative tool so as to underline differences and impact. COVID crisis appears to reveal, as a photographic process, what is ongoing with book selling change.While the online selling revolution has announced since many years, impact of the pandemic were very different to one country to another. COVID is in fact a relevant window into depicting the silent revolution that is occurring with bookstores. This resurgence could have been accelerated by the crisis. Yet, we should be carefull to the european comparison for two reasons. First, what constitues a bookshop can differ from a country to another, and this depends on the social imaginary of reading and book. Second, measures taken during the COVID crisis (lockdown, curfew) have not been the same and did not last the same amount of time in different countries. So it could be seful to connect data and specific COVID measures.