New Voices New Rooms, the joint conference of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association and the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, once again kicked off the fall regional bookselling show season, attracting a record 580 attendees to the Marriott Marquis Hotel in downtown Atlanta, August 3-6.

NVNR was launched during the pandemic when NAIBA and SIBA combined their conferences; this year’s conference was the deepest foray yet into SIBA territory. According to organizers, this year’s gathering drew 335 booksellers from 196 bookstores—up 9% from 2024; 199 booksellers were first-time attendees. There were 221 SIBA booksellers from 118 stores, and 114 NAIBA booksellers from 78 stores.

Booksellers came from all over the mid-Atlantic region and the South, hailing from as far north as upstate New York and as far southwest as New Orleans. For three days, they engaged in conversation about big picture issues like censorship and children’s literacy, as well as more prosaic matters, like inventory turns and damages. Of course, authors and ARCs are always a big draw at the regionals, and NVNR delivered, with appearances by 90 authors ranging from such luminaries as Jason Reynolds and Angie Thomas to scores of lesser-known names.

This year’s NVNR was not just a conference but a celebration of books, bookselling, and the freedom to read. The opening event was the airing of the documentary Banned Together, about a group of students who, with the help of their adult allies, successfully fought to return almost 100 books that had been removed from their school library shelves.

Monday morning’s breakfast keynote, billed as “Heroes on the Front Lines of Book Banning” and emceed by American Booksellers for Free Expression associate director Philomena Polefrone, featured two of those students—Brea Parker and Kate Selvitelli—along with Christina Nosti, director of events and programming at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Fla. and Alison Rudolph, a former English teacher who is co-owner of Rudolph Girls in Westminster, Md. Thomas, as well as Nic Stone and Silas House, also spoke of the impact upon them of their work being challenged or banned.

“You can put the right book in the right hands,” Polefrone told attendees. “And until educators, librarians, and authors have the protections they deserve, indie bookstores may be the best lifeline some folks have to the books they need to flourish.”

For SIBA booksellers, NVNR included celebrating the organization’s 50th anniversary and its rebranding, with a logo depicting a sun rising from the pages of a book, symbolizing booksellers’ resilience in the face of challenges. SIBA is also celebrating phenomenal growth: its current membership is 277 booksellers, up 18% over 2024. NAIBA, which is preparing for executive director Eileen Dengler’s impending retirement, is also celebrating growth: the organization counted 280 bookstore members in 2025, a 15% increase over 2024.

Every bookseller PW spoke with reported an increase in sales this past year, although DJ Johnson, the owner of Baldwin & Co. in New Orleans, pointed out that while sales are up, costs have also increased, so that his profit margins remain essentially the same. Still, Johnson says he is “very confident in the future” of Baldwin & Co. and is excited about the store’s new YouTube channel, which has already netted 20,000 subscribers and features the store’s author-conversation podcast Baldwin Dialogues. Johnson said that many customers come into the store and refer to the podcast. “Every bookstore needs to have a YouTube channel,” Johnson said.

Bunnie Hilliard, owner of Brave + Kind Bookstore in Decatur, Ga., is reveling in the success of the store’s Black Girl Book Fair, cohosted by six Black women–owned Atlanta-area booksellers and held on Independent Bookstore Day last spring. The six stores intend to hold another Black Girl Book Fair during the holidays as well as on Independent Bookstore Day 2026. Brave + Kind Books will also launch the Beautifully Black Children’s Book Festival this coming March at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.

Julia Davis, the owner of the Book Worm in Powder Springs, Ga., is also celebrating the success of the Black Girl Book Fair—but she she is even happier that 500 customers petitioned the city to modify ongoing construction that was obstructing access to her store. “I watched a community come together in support of a bookstore,” Davis said.

Education sessions get high marks

While meeting authors and grabbing ARCs are always on NVNR booksellers’ agendas, most of the booksellers that PW spoke with said that their favorite part of NVNR this time around was the education component.

Jennifer Sauter-Price, owner of Read Early and Daily Read in Arlington, Va., said that she got a lot out of every session she attended, especially one on how to organize children’s book festivals. Carrie Deming, the owner of Dog Eared Books in Palmyra, N.Y., described the education sessions as “fantastic,” and praised Polefrone for an illuminating presentation on navigating content-based attacks on one’s store. “It was an amazing session,” Deming said. “I took two pages of notes. It hasn’t happened to me, but I feel like it’s only a matter of time.”

Erin Caudill, head buyer at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati and Lexington, Ky., found the sessions on children’s literacy and on improving inventory turns for more profitability especially valuable. “The panelists gave me concrete ideas on what I can do,” she said. Veronica Liu, the general coordinator of Word Up Community Bookshop in New York City, also praised the session on inventory turns, noting that “The session was standing-room-only because it's an important issue for booksellers; we all want to reduce returns.”

Now in its third year being held in person, this year’s NVNR got high marks from NAIBA and SIBA booksellers. Deming says that NVNR draws “more publishers and more sidelines, and it's the first show that all my reps are at.” More importantly, though, “the more booksellers you can talk to, the more you learn,” she says. Caudill pointed out that NVNR “brings so many people together, allowing the two organizations to do more robust things, like the education. I focus on education rather than the exhibit area, because I know I can talk to publishers at other times.”

NVNR 2026 will be held in Baltimore. The date and venue have not yet been confirmed.

[