> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://airwave.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Running a bookshop in 2026 - URL: https://airwave.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/running-a-bookshop-in-2026/ - Published: 2026-07-25T06:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-07-25T06:00:00.000Z - Description: Everyone said independent bookshops were finished. Sophie opened one anyway. Here are her real numbers. - Author: Kemi Adeyemi - Tags: The Ledger, Small Talk, #Import 2026-09-30 05:13 Everyone said independent bookshops were finished. Online shops were cheaper, e-books were easier and nobody had time to browse. And yet, in many towns, new independent bookshops keep opening. In this episode, Kemi visits one of them and asks the owner how the numbers actually work. ![audio-thumbnail](https://airwave.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/book-shop-1.jpg) The Ledger — Running a bookshop in 2026 0:00 /32 1× ## In this episode - **00:00** — The bell over the door - **05:05** — Why open a bookshop at all? - **13:30** — The real numbers behind a book sale - **24:45** — Events, clubs and coffee - **35:20** — What customers want that screens cannot give ![The window display changes every Monday. Sales follow it.](https://airwave.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/book-window-1.jpg) The window display changes every Monday. Sales follow it. ## Why do it Sophie opened her shop four years ago after a career in publishing. Friends told her she was mad. She knew the numbers were hard, but she also believed that people still wanted a place to discover books, not just buy them. "An online shop is brilliant if you already know what you want," she tells Kemi. "A bookshop is for when you do not." > An online shop is brilliant if you already know what you want. A bookshop is for when you do not. > > **Sophie, bookshop owner** ## The numbers Sophie is refreshingly open about money. On a typical new book, the shop keeps a little under half of the cover price. From that, she pays rent, staff, card fees, electricity and returns. The profit on a single book is small. The business works only when enough people buy enough books, often. She walks Kemi through a whole month of accounts. The surprise is how much comes from things other than books: events, a small café, gift cards, and a monthly subscription where she hand-picks a book for each subscriber. ![](https://airwave.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/book-stack-1.jpg) ![](https://airwave.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/book-shelf-1.jpg) ![](https://airwave.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/book-reader-1.jpg) Stacks, shelves and the café corner that pays for the heating. 📚 Sophie's advice to anyone dreaming of a shop: before you sign a lease, run a pop-up for a month. It costs little and it tells you more than any business plan. ## More than a shop Events are central to the shop's survival: author readings, children's story time, a crime fiction club that has met every month since the shop opened. They bring people through the door, and people who come through the door buy books. But Sophie insists that the events are not just marketing. They make the shop part of the neighbourhood. People come to talk, to meet, to be around other people who love reading. ![The shop floor: four years in, and Sophie still unpacks new boxes every morning.](https://airwave.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/book-owner-1.jpg) The shop floor: four years in, and Sophie still unpacks new boxes every morning. ## What screens cannot do At the end of the episode, Kemi asks what bookshops offer that screens do not. Sophie thinks for a moment. "Surprise," she says. "You come in for one book and leave with a different one, because it was on the table, or because I told you about it, or because someone next to you picked it up. Algorithms recommend what you already like. A good bookshop shows you what you did not know you would love." ## Behind the episode Kemi recorded this episode after the shop had closed, so the only sounds in the background are the kettle and, now and then, a delivery van outside. Sophie made three pots of tea over the course of the conversation and gave Kemi a book to take home, which she has now read twice. ### The numbers, simply Because listeners asked, here is Sophie's rough monthly picture, rounded and simplified: - Books bring in about seventy percent of all money coming into the shop. - The café brings in about fifteen percent. - Events, gift cards and subscriptions make up the rest. - Rent and staff take up most of the costs, followed by stock. ### Listener question: how can I support my local bookshop? Sophie's answer: order through them, even when it takes a few days longer. Go to their events. Buy gift cards instead of generic presents. Tell them what you love reading, so they can recommend better books. And if you enjoyed a book they suggested, come back and tell them. It makes their week. ### More from The Ledger The Ledger looks at how small businesses really make their money. Next season covers a family restaurant, a bike repair shop and a small independent cinema, all with the same open approach to the numbers. ## Credits Hosted by Kemi Adeyemi. Recorded in the shop after closing time, with the lights down and the kettle on.