Clunes Booktown 2012.
Some of you booklovers, and or booksellers, may have heard via the media, that Clunes* (Victoria) has achieved international booktown status. The first such booktown in the southern hemisphere. This is a massive achievement and something that Clunes has been aiming for, for a number of years. There are certain criteria that need to be ticked off so as to achieve this and I wont bore you with the details, I’ll let the I.O.B. (International Organisation of Book Towns) do that.
Here is the current (2nd may 2012) list of international booktowns as listed by the I.O.B.:
Bredevoort (NL) Fjærland (NO) Hay-on-Wye (GB) KampungBuku (MY) Montereggio (IT) Redu (BE) Sedbergh (GB)St-Pierre-de-Clages (CH)Sysmä (FI) Tvedestrand (NO) Wigtown (GB) Wünsdorf-Waldstadt (DE)Urueña (ES) Pazin (HR)
You can see where all these booktowns are worldwide, by having a look at their map… which unfortunately doesn’t really show the bottom bit of Australia as Google advertising obscures us. It is a great thing to be added to such an illustrious list and to have our name associated with this organization. This will hopefully encourage book buyers from all over the world to visit us here and sample some of our bookish delights.
So for us booksellers here in Clunes (that’s 7 or 8… possibly 9, depending on which media outlet you read) this can only be a good thing. As all of us know, book sales are on the decline due to fierce competition from ebooks (etc) and aggressive companies such as Book Depository and Amazon… whose adds regularly pop up when doing a search for articles regarding booktown accreditation… so any promotion can only be good for us smaller secondhand booksellers.
(Any comments are welcome.)
*Yes. Where i live and where i sell books.
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