Trade news
Welcome to the latest National Book Tokens news and updates for booksellers. Scroll down for news about our products, services and campaigns, or read our latest retailer newsletters.
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Help your local school win £1,000/€1,000 for their library
Our annual competition is back! Five massive £1,000/€1,000 book token prizes are on offer for schools across the UK and Ireland so they can rebuild their libraries and encourage reading for pleasure. And with the UK's National Year of Reading in full swing, we're giving away more prizes to more schools than ever before, with weekly flash prize draws every week until 24th June. All the winners will be spending their National Book Tokens with bookshops, so help your local schools spread the word!
The competition is a great reminder to schools that National Book Tokens are the perfect way to encourage a love for reading, while also supporting local businesses. Along with our unique rewards for end-of-year prizes, it can offer you a tangible way of connecting with local schools to make sure they're buying their rewards and incentives from your bookshop, fostering strong links that can support your business while also helping children in your community discover the joys of choosing a new book.
We're working with our longstanding charity partners Read for Good, as well as Children's Books Ireland, to raise awareness of the importance of reading for pleasure for children, and the vital role that school libraries can play in developing these skills for life. Find out more about our partnership, and encourage your customers to nominate their schools, at nationalbooktokens.com/schools-prize
We've created downloadable posters and social banners – available in English, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish –to help you promote the competition instore and online.
Download posters and banners
The Jhalak Prize announces its first Bookshop Partners
Celebrating its 10th anniversary year, the Jhalak Prize has reaffirmed its commitment to literary accessibility and working directly with bookshops with the new Bookshop Partners initiative. The first 25 Bookshop Partners were announced in early May 2026, ranging from long-established stores to newly opened spaces and includes four specialist children’s bookshops.
This initiative builds on years of collaboration between the Jhalak Prize and National Book Tokens. This partnership, which began in 2021, seeks to raise awareness and support of the prize among booksellers and the wider bookselling ecosystem during a period of increasing challenge for the industry.
In this time, the number of bookshops receiving Jhalak Prize printed display materials has increased by almost 50%.
Each Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner receives a window sticker for their bookshop to display their commitment to the Prize’s ethos, and will gain access to publicity opportunities, connections to Jhalak Prize authors, leading to events beyond the Prize season that suit individual bookshop calendars.
The Jhalak Prize and National Book Tokens will also facilitate knowledge sharing among booksellers, to support their efforts to create inclusive and welcoming spaces for all. In expanding this work, the Prize and its partners seek to support bookshops as third spaces, highlighting the way they operate as cultural and community hubs where readers gather and ideas are exchanged.
A key development of the initiative is the creation of a shared, accessible network of Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partners, available on the Jhalak Prize website. This directory allows readers to discover and support local bookshops in their own neighbourhoods, as well as explore new literary spaces when travelling the UK and Ireland.
Sarah Dennis from Mostly Books, commented: "10 years in the book trade has shown me the importance of a bookshop as a safe space. I see it time and time again when people come in and appreciate the team's engagement and willingness to know them as people, rather than customers. The high street is dwindling and I firmly believe that shops like Mostly Books are vital 'third spaces', offering people a sanctuary where they know they are 100% welcome."
Jo Wozencroft from Urmston Books and Board Games, commented: "Originally from Singapore and an immigrant myself, I'm passionate about championing books from authors from different backgrounds and making sure that stories from all across the globe are available to be enjoyed and appreciated. I truly believe that storytelling transcends genre, ages and backgrounds, and endeavour to bring that into every area of our work."
Fives Leaves Bookshop said: "There are people who will always read: for whom books have long been a part of their recreational activity as well as formal education. Building a space that feels exciting for them while also being somewhere that can introduce people who haven't read since they were a child and who thought for a long time books simply weren't for them, to the myriad possibilities literature has to offer – that's both a joy and our life's mission."
What is a Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner?
A Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner is a bookshop that shares the values of the Jhalak Prize: to connect writers and readers from all backgrounds, to be inclusive and expansive, to welcome those who may have previously felt un-welcome. To be a Bookshop Partner is to say that your bookshop is a welcoming space, and that you’re committed to making customers from all backgrounds feel like a part of your community.
As a Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner:
- You'll receive a window sticker to signify that your bookshop is a welcoming space for all members of the local community.
- Your bookshop will be included on the list of official partners on the Jhalak Prize site, and benefit from the opportunity to work with the Jhalak Prize team on additional PR and content opportunities for your bookshop.
- You'll be invited to share the ways in which you make your space inclusive and welcoming, to inspire other bookshops and demonstrate to the wider book industry the real impact that bookshops make in their local communities.
- Jhalak Prize and National Book Tokens will amplify the work you're doing on our social media channels and websites, to a wide audience of book lovers, book buyers and people in the book industry.
As we have since 2021, we'll continue to distribute free display materials for longlisted, shortlisted and winning titles to all bookshops that wish to use them, regardless of whether or not you're a Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner.
If you'd like to find out more about becoming a Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner, please get in touch!
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The Jhalak Prize shortlists 2026 – small acts of creative resistance
The Jhalak Prize has announced the shortlists for its tenth anniversary year. The awards across three categories - Children's & YA, Prose and Poetry – celebrate the creativity, imagination and scholarly excellence of writers of colour in the United Kingdom and Ireland. For the sixth year, our support ensures that booksellers can promote these fantastic books to their local communities.
Below are all the details of the shortlisted books, which are available to order from Gardners.
Here's how you can promote the shortlisted books in your bookshop
- Download printable posters to display instore, and digital banners for your site and socials. If you're sharing on socials, don't forget to tag us @book_tokens and @jhalakprize, using #JhalakPrize26!
- If you didn't already sign up to receive free printed point of sale materials, get in touch to request your kit.
- Contact our marketing team if you have any events or other activities planned, from author events and signings to dedicated book clubs, podcasts and instore promotions. We'll connect you with the Jhalak Prize team for any potential PR opportunities.
- Plus, find out below how you can become a Jhalak Prize Bookshop Partner.
The Jhalak Prose Prize shortlist 2026:
Act Normal: Joy and Despair in Postcolonial Britain, Pete Kalu (HopeRoad, 9781913109448)
Call Me Ishmaelle, Xiaolu Guo (Vintage, 9781529929997)
Foreign Fruit, Katie Goh (Canongate, 9781837261178)
Hail Mary, Funmi Fetto (Magpie, 9780861547692)
I Want to Talk to You, Diana Evans (Chatto & Windus, 9781784744243)
The South, Tash Aw (Fourth Estate, 9780008637644)
The Jhalak Children's & YA Prize shortlist 2026:
Augmented, Kenechi Udogu (Faber, 9780571385843)
How to Catch an Idea, Forest Xiao (Orchard Books, 9781408366981)
My Name is Samim, Fidan Miekle (Kelpies, 9781782509301)
Roar, Manjeet Mann (Penguin Books, 9780241647622)
Supa Nova, Chanté Timothy (Nosy Crow, 9781805130666)
The Shell Keepers, Truly Johnson (Chicken House, 9781915947734)
The Jhalak Poetry Prize shortlist 2026:
Foretokens, Sarah Howe (Chatto & Windus, 9781784746131)
Holy Boys, Andres N. Ordorica (Polygon, 9781846976889)
I Sing to the Greenhearts, Maggie Harris (Seren, 9781781727713)
My Dearest Friend, Lady Red Ego (Verve, 9781913917678)
The New Carthaginians, Nick Makoha (Penguin, 9781802067071)
Why I am not a Bus Driver, Ashley Hickson-Lovence (Bad Betty, 9781913268749)
Handy hints for Multi Factor Authentication
If you're using our online systems for National Book Tokens transactions, your account and password are kept secure with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA). This means that you will be asked (approx. every 60 days) for a 6-digit One-Time-PIN (OTP) when signing in to the gift card authorisations, admin and reports sites.
MFA was introduced in September 2023, and all account users are required to set it up in order to access our online systems. There are many authenticator options available, but if you followed our guidelines at the time, you are likely to have downloaded the FIS Desktop Authenticator App or the authenticator.cc browser extension.
Discover our Presentation Card: a flexible rewards solution for local schools
Our popular Presentation Card incorporates a personalised or standard design National Book Tokens gift card into an A5 presentation card which can also include certificate-style information about the reward or award being presented. It offers greater flexibility and additional options to school customers looking to encourage reading for pleasure and give the gift of reading, in what is a very competitive market. What's more, there's no additional cost to personalise the Presentation Card.
As a bookseller, you can offer this product to local schools. As with personalised gift cards, we will manage the production process for you, and the transaction will go through your bookshop account. Just let us know how many Presentation Cards the customer would like, and the values to load, and we will do the rest on your behalf.
The Presentation Card includes all the usual details that you would expect to see on a gift card, and is processed the same way at the till. To find out more, email Uzo Onuora or call 020 7421 4654.
Email Uzo
