Shelf-sharing seeks to save bookstores in Japan

These folks are heroes. Shelf space is normally reserved for top sellers from major publishers, who sell books of varying quality courtesy of their advertising budgets, covers and blurbs. Some awful books get shelf space and sales in consequence. Other books - indie publishers and self publishing - struggle to be seen.

There are loads of interesting books, often breaking the restrictive guidelines of the major publishers, that people never read because they never see them on a shelf.

I wish we had this in the UK. For a long time we have had supermarkets who charge producers for shelf space for their products, or we did. There are shortages and product numbers have now declined, so there is plenty of spare shelf space now. But I don't think we have bookshops like this yet. I hope it pays the bills and works out. It's good news for authors and readers.

I hope it does well! One thing I love about Japan is that there still are physical bookshops, something that has become rare in many countries. I think a lot of them are struggling though, so hopefully this could be a working concept.