From Pub Crawl to Book Crawl

Historians speculate that the first official pub crawl occurred in the early 1900’s in Oxford, England. Allegedly, a group of students thought it would be fun to visit every pub in town in one night. Before they hit the final pub however, the students were so inebriated, they had to crawl instead of walk to their next destination. And thus the Pub Crawl was born.

Whether this is exactly how it all went down or not, the term ‘pub crawl’ was first recorded in a Manachester newspaper in 1910, and people have been ‘crawling’ through pubs with their friends and colleagues all over the world since that time.

Who knew it would take another 100+ years for someone to take the pub crawl concept and bring it to the book world. But thankfully they did, and now bookstore crawls are the new book clubs.

What is a Book(store) Crawl?

Seventeen countries participated in the first Global Book Crawl in 2025.

At its most basic, a bookstore / book crawl is when bookstores from a single town or city, select a specific timeframe - a day, a weekend, or a week - to encourage customers to visit as many stores as possible during that time frame. Oftentimes there is a passport or some kind of card for the customer to get stamped at every participating bookstore. In other words, there is some gamification incorporated into the event. And what’s a game without a prize? Not always, but many book crawls offer prizes for anyone who visits all of the participating stores during the specified period.

It goes without saying that the book crawl is a great way to drum up business and increase awareness for the participating stores. Some bookstore owners get creative with the rules for their crawls - the annual San Diego Book Crawl requires visitors to spend $10 in each store in order to get the official stamp on their passport, but they also offer a shuttle bus to take folks to all of the stores - which can elevate the experience and/or make it more profitable.

Book Crawls Equals Commerce + Activism

For independent bookstores, the book crawl concept is more than a sales gimmick. As an industry that is constantly fighting with online retailers and big box stores, indie bookstores have to be nimble and creative in order to stay competitive in the market, and quite frankly, to keep their doors open. Hosting a bookstore crawl therefore, isn’t just a money making scheme, it’s an opportunity to bring more visibility to the bookstore, and it provides an opportunity to build bridges and community amongst and between like-minded bookstore owners and customers. It was exactly that idea that inspired Federico Lang to take the lead in organizing the world’s first global book crawl in April, 2025.

The 2025 Global Book Crawl

*The first Global Book Crawl took place from April 21 - 26, 2025.*

Based in Malaga, Spain, Lang has been in the book business, from publishing to retail, for 20 years. The idea for a global bookstore crawl came to him while he was attending the Frankfurt Book Fair, and he realized how independent book sellers around the world suffered from the same problems and issues. When he heard about the bookstore crawl concept, he realized that if the small indies worked together, they could supersize the benefits that had, up until this point, only been seen on a local level.

Lang quickly enlisted two other booksellers to help him bring his vision to life, Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo from Greenlight Books in Brooklyn, New York, and Brid Conroy from Tertulia bookshop in Westport, Ireland.

The 2025 Global Book Crawl took place from April 21 - 26, with the last day coinciding with Independent Bookstore Day and World Book Day falling in the middle of that same week. So, the bookish vibes were flowing. For this first global book crawl, bookstores in the following countries participated; Spain, Australia, Ireland, Iceland, Argentina, Austria, Canada, Fiji, Guatemala, Italy, Lichtenstein, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Malaysia, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States of America.

“We surpassed even the most optimistic expectations,” Lang said, a week after the crawl ended. Even better, the skeptics were won over. “I’ve talked to some of the booksellers here in Malaga,” Lang said, “and at first they were very doubtful that anyone would come to their stores because of the crawl. Well, they were very surprised when hundreds of people showed up.”

But the win wasn’t just about the increased foot traffic and sales during one week in April, it was the camaraderie and connections built amongst independent booksellers all around the world, working together to prove their collective strength.

“For most of the booksellers,” Lang said, “there was a feeling that for this week [in April] we won. We beat the Amazons . We beat the chain stores. Together.”

What’s Next for The Global Book Crawl?

For Lang, who is already planning for the 2026 Global Book Crawl, the bookstore crawl is just one part of a bigger vision for independent bookstores around the world to support one another, share resources, and collaborate on programming. He’s ready to go all in to make this vision a reality because he is concerned with the lack of real agency indie bookstores have in the marketplace.

“Calling ourselves independent is a paradox,” Lang said. “We are actually the most dependent link in the book industry chain.” That’s why he wants to create more ways for indie bookstores to collaborate and strengthen their standing in their communities.

“We don’t want to be another Amazon or big box store, we want to strengthen our links to our own communities,” he said.

Stay tuned to see what’s next for this initiative, and remember to shop your local indie bookstores.