Bookshop of the Month
Each month, we select a bookshop who's been making brilliant use of our free local marketing platform, National Book Tokens Local (formerly Caboodle) to connect with their local audience. Our Bookshop of the Month wins a luxury food and wine hamper, and promotion via our social channels.
February 2025: Five Leaves Bookshop
Congratulations to this month's winner!
We're thrilled to announce our Bookshop of the Month for February: Five Leaves Bookshop!
Five Leaves is Nottingham's independent and radical bookshop. They are five minutes from a huge Waterstones (and want to be, because of shared customers) and in an alley rather than on the High Street, so they have to — and want to — have lots of events to draw people into the shop and to make them stand out!
Five Leaves started off as a publisher in 1995, became a bookshop operating on a much wider canvas in 2013. They still publish. They do up to 100 events a year. It's dizzying, but exciting!
See Five Leaves Bookshop's profile
"We'll often find people visiting the city coming in because they've seen what we're up to on National Book Tokens Local. Listing events also acts as a general driver to bring people to the shop.
Gift cards, both our own and National Book Tokens, are an essential part of any bookselling business. We can also redeem National Book Tokens on our own webshop so you don't even have to be local to benefit!"
Ross, Five Leaves Bookshop
We know our customers love bookshops as much as we do. Our free local marketing tool enables you to promote your bookshop more widely – just upload your latest updates, events and offers to our simple online platform and they'll appear on the National Book Tokens and Books Are My Bag websites, as well as being sent by email directly to our subscribers who live nearby.
If you're not yet using National Book Tokens Local to promote your bookshop locally, don't miss out – sign up today, and you could be a future winner!
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Previous winners
January 2025: Norfolk Children's Book Centre
"Our children’s bookshop is nestled in the Norfolk countryside, powered by wind and the sun. It’s a beautiful place to be, but it does mean we don’t have the passers by that most bookshops have. We’ve been using National Book Tokens Local to make sure that being out of the way doesn’t mean our customers are out of the loop!"
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December 2024: Children's Bookshop, Muswell Hill
"We’ve always used National Book Tokens Local alongside our work - it gives us a wider reach for our events both large and small; promotes our listings to local families and schools, and links up with all our loyal visitors who have enjoyed the High 5 campaign over Indie Bookshop Week. It plays an essential part of our promotions, and keeps us on the bookshop map!"
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November 2024: Script Haven
"Using National Book Tokens Local has really helped broaden our reach to audiences who may otherwise not have heard of our events. We recently hosted Annie Garthwaite, and people came from as far away as Wigan to the event – they had missed her Northern appearances and discovered she was with us thanks to National Book Tokens Local!"
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October 2024: Wedale Bookshop
"We continue to highlight our events and activities through National Book Tokens Local and we know this reaches our target audience because they tell us it works! [...] having an additional method of direct communications with potential customers works really well for us."
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September 2024: Chorleywood Bookshop
"Given the fantastic array of author events we host throughout the year, the National Book Tokens Local platform offers us a very valuable way to reach book lovers who might not be aware of our events programme, helping us to bring authors and readers together in engaging ways."
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August 2024: Caper
"As a bookshop that's only recently opened, at Caper we have been grateful that National Book Tokens Local offers such an effective way of connecting to the wider local community who might not yet know about us, or who haven't visited yet – it's simple to use and a fantastic way to increase our reach."
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July 2024: The Bookshop in Helston
"Being able to promote the bookshop events on National Book Tokens Local has been absolutely wonderful - the platform fills a need that we don’t have the resources to provide for ourselves and we know the platform reaches people because customers tell us!"
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June 2024: Bow Books
"The shop has used National Book Tokens Local from early on to promote monthly offers and regular Top Picks to the most book-friendly people nearby. Also to publicise events and signings, including the opening with Jeffrey Archer and a session with Carrie Dunn, a leading writer on women’s football. "
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May 2024: Battersea Bookshop
"As a new bookshop, we have found National Book Tokens Local to be a great resource in connecting to people around us and the wider London community. It has helped to make our events calendar over the past year a great success, and to introduce us to people who had yet to visit."
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April 2024: Heron & Willow, Jedburgh
"[National Book Tokens Local] has been a great tool to get word out and also increase our customer reach, all of which is very important in your first year!”
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March 2024: Perivale Christian Bookshop, South East London
"[It's] a simple-to-use and free marketing tool, and it reaches a large audience. It is well worth spending time to put events and promotions on here."
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February 2024: Westwood Books, Cumbria
"It's especially good to know that it's reaching people who are already committed to supporting bookshops. It's simple to use too which is always a bonus when you're running a business and juggling so many other things."
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January 2024: Cambridge University Press Bookshop
"We know that every email is targeted to bona fide book lovers who really want to know what events and promotions we have to offer. It really is a quick and easy way to share what’s most important to your bookshop with customers in the area."
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December 2023: The Bookshop Mold, Wales
"National Book Tokens Local helps us to connect to new customers who have not yet discovered The Mold Bookshop and it complements our own newsletters perfectly. I encourage other bookshops to use it as it is a great opportunity for them to expand their reach and grow their customer base."
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November 2023: Kirkdale Bookshop, South East London
"We use National Book Tokens Local to advertise any events we have coming up as it has a great reach to many people who might not otherwise know about us through the usual channels like social media."
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