Primary source: American Booksellers Association (ABA) 2024 Annual Report (released 2024 (ABA Annual Report)). View original report
The American Booksellers Association (ABA) reported in its 2024 Annual Report that 323 new bookstore businesses opened across the United States during calendar year 2024. The total includes brick-and-mortar storefronts, pop-up shops, mobile bookstores, and online-only stores. Only 37 bookstore businesses closed in the same period.
ABA membership grew 18% in 2024. The association noted this was the fourth consecutive year with more than 200 new store openings, a sustained reversal of the long decline in physical book retail that dominated industry conversation for two decades.
Breakdown of new stores
Of the 323 openings in 2024, ABA counted 247 storefronts, 55 pop-ups, 12 mobile operations, and 9 online stores. The report also tracked diversity among new entrants, including 29 BIPOC-owned and 19 Black-owned bookstore businesses that opened during the year.
Context and challenges
ABA leadership emphasized that growth occurred despite familiar pressures: thin margins, rising operating costs, and competition from large online retailers. The 2024 report also cited threats to the right to read and coordinated challenges to book access in schools and libraries as issues affecting booksellers directly.
Associated Press reporting in 2025 quoted ABA CEO Allison Hill on the gap between public perception and current data. Many people still assume bookstores are disappearing, even as association membership approaches levels not seen since the late 1990s.
What this means for publishers
Independent stores remain a vital discovery channel for frontlist titles and local author events. Growth in store count does not automatically mean each shop has equal buying power, but a larger indie footprint creates more physical touchpoints for curated recommendation, which trade publishing still depends on for certain genres and author brands.
For more detail, see the ABA 2024 Annual Report (PDF) at bookweb.org.
Source: American Booksellers Association, 2024 Annual Report. Analysis by The Idea Logical Company.