A HAWORTH bookshop is supporting the first-anniversary celebrations of an online book-selling platform which it has described as “a lifesaver”.

Wave of Nostalgia – in Main Street – is amongst the businesses that have benefited from Bookshop.org UK, which was launched on the same day in November last year the country went back into lockdown.

In the opening 12 months, customers buying through Bookshop.org have raised nearly £1.7 million in total for the 480 independent bookshops on the platform.

The shops receive a commission of 30 per cent for each book sold through their Bookshop.org page. And for some businesses, the income has been pivotal in helping them to continue trading during a hugely-difficult year.

Wave of Nostalgia shares the books that have generated most money for it.

The shop’s owner, Diane Park, says: “Bookshop.org has been a fantastic addition to the options for keeping our customers happy.

“There’s a huge choice and it delivers excellent service at a good price when we can’t be there to help in person. It was a lifesaver in lockdown.”

Bookshop.org – labelled as “an ethical alternative to Amazon” – has a stock of over four million titles, by a wide range of authors.

Nicole Vanderbilt, for Bookshop.org, said: “We are delighted by – and incredibly grateful for – the response we’ve had from readers, bookshops, affiliates and the wider publishing industry.

“However, this is really only the beginning of what we believe we can do together to reshape the industry so that indie bookshops get a greater share of the increasingly-online book market.

“We want to live in a world in which indie bookshops thrive – the bookshops that are community stalwarts, the owners who pour their heart and soul into making their high streets a better place, the booksellers who actually read and respond to books before confidently putting them into the hands of a reader.

“We encourage readers to visit these bookshops as much as they possibly can. But when they can’t, our role is to provide an easy, convenient, ethical way to buy books online while supporting these incredible bookshops. Our message to readers is stop sending your money to ‘space’ and start sending it to the independent bookshops we all love. There really is a better way to buy books online.”