The independent Petersfield Bookshop in Hampshire was having a pretty bad start to the week when, on a very rainy Tuesday, it revealed on Twitter that it had failed to sell a single book that day. Luckily, Neil Gaiman was on hand, and managed to bring some much needed exposure to the small bookshop, which saw thousands of pounds worth of orders come flying in.
On Tuesday 14th, the bookshop published a Tweet which read: “…Tumbleweed… Not a single book sold today… £0.00… We think think this maybe the first time ever… We know its miserable out but if you’d like to help us out please find our Abebooks offering below, all at 25% off at the moment…”
Thing weren’t looking good for the bookshop until, a few hours later, famed author Neil Gaiman shared the Tweet to his 2 million-plus followers, who were more than happy to give the shop a helping hand. Robert Sansom, who has worked at the shop for over 13 years said orders began coming in from around the world.
As The Guardian reports, Sansom described the whole event as “really touching”. “People have been so kind. This will really make a difference. There are slow days, but it was a really unusual day for us to have not sold any books – no one wanted to come out because of Storm Brendan.”
He added: “It blows me away. I don’t understand social media because I’m old-fashioned, but when Rob called me and told me the figures, I was gobsmacked.”
The original Tweet had been reposted over 6,000 times by Wednesday evening and had over 11,000 likes. The following day, the bookshop published a follow up Tweet, which read: “What a night! We have been completely overwhelmed in a good way. We have 1,100 new followers. We have loads of online book orders. We have over 300 messages, many asking after books. We will answer all as soon as we can, please bear with us
Thank you all so much!”
It sounds like business is booming once more and in no small part thanks to Mr. Gaiman, who has proved once again what an ally to literature he is. If you’d like to check out the bookshop for yourself, you can visit its website HERE.
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