Independent bookshops have really been up against it over the last few years.
Amazon, Kindles, and supermarkets offering bestsellers at a discount have all been a thorn in the side of booksellers - and that was before the pandemic hit.
However, independent bookshops have benefitted from an increase in physical book sales during the last two years - with one bookseller doing so well she's opened two new shops in the last year.
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Helen Stanton, who owns the award-winning Forum Books in Corbridge and its sister shop The Bound in Whitley Bay, opened her third shop 'The Accidental Bookshop' in Alnwick at the end of 2021 - and says she couldn't be happier.
Helen said: "The reason I've done it is that all of lockdown gave me a lot of hope, to be honest. To start off with, I felt everything we worked on making these lovely bookshops for you to browse in had been pushed off a cliff, it really felt awful.
"But what we got from our customers, people coming in and supporting us gave me so much hope and that's really fuelled me to do it. Obviously I'm addicted to books and bookshops, so we might stop here!"
Helen's second new shop in a year came a little out of the blue, especially as finding the premises and setting up the Bound, with a bit of nagging from Vera author Ann Cleeves OBE, took the best part of two years.
However, she says that this one has 'come together quite quickly.'
Ann Cleeves is one of many local authors that Helen has held events with, and she is excited to continue this after meeting writers from the area in the new shop's first month - with local geologist Ian Jackson's book Northumberland Rocks the best-selling title there so far.
She continued: "It's been absolutely amazing to meet our local customers and lots of local writers - which is really exciting so hopefully got some really good events coming up and some fabulous local titles as well."
Speaking to the Chronicle before the Accidental Bookshop opened, Helen said: "I had another name which my husband wasn’t so keen on but my son was calling it the accidental bookshop because it wasn’t meant to happen yet. I’ve learned over the last year or two that things don’t always happen when you want them to."
Of course, there is already a popular bookshop in Alnwick - Barter Books in what used to be train station. However, Barter Books trades second-hand books, and Helen is confident that they can exist side by side and even turn Alnwick into a 'book heaven.'
She added: "We (The Accidental Bookshop and Barter Books) both love books but are not doing the same thing. Maybe Alnwick will become a book heaven!"
And on the wider North East, Helen feels that her three shops are nicely spaced out for people to see a connection between the 'beautiful' places in the region.
She finished: "I've had lots of people come up from Whitley Bay and Newcastle to Alnwick and I'm sending people from Alnwick down to Corbridge so hopefully people will just see this lovely connection in the region that we've got these lovely places to visit and they've got a brilliant bookshop in them too."
The Accidental Bookshop is located on Narrowgate in Alnwick and is open from 10am - 5pm Monday to Saturday.
