The Book People Ltd was a UK online bookseller founded in 1988. It went into administration in 2019 and was formally dissolved in 2022.

History

The Book People started business in 1988, initially in the

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...

, Surrey area. It expanded rapidly, and by 1990 the company had 140 distributors around the country. A mail-order catalogue was followed by an online store in 1998. In 2002 the company opened offices in Haydock,

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial and metropolitan county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Wales, Welsh county of Flintshire across ...

and, with part funding by the

Welsh Government The Welsh Government ( ) is the Executive (government), executive arm of the Welsh devolution, devolved government of Wales. The government consists of Cabinet secretary, cabinet secretaries and Minister of State, ministers. It is led by the F ...

, a customer service centre and warehouse in Bangor. In 2007, The Book People won the ''Direct to Consumer Bookselling Company of the Year'' Award at the ''Bookseller'' Retail Awards. The company's founder Ted Smart received the

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

Group Award for Outstanding Contribution to Bookselling. A management buy-out of the company took place in 2014, with support from

Endless LLP Endless is a British private equity firm. It is headquartered at Ground Floor, 12 King Street, Leeds, with an office at 102 Park Street, Mayfair, Park Street, London W1. In 2017, Endless bought Jones Bootmaker, saving 840 jobs according to BBC. ...

, a UK-based equity investor. By February 2016 the company was employing over 600 staff. On 17 December 2019, the BBC reported that The Book People had gone into administration.

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, alon ...

(PwC) were appointed administrators, with the company continuing to trade while Endless LLP looked for a buyer. In August 2020 the company name was changed to TBP Realisations Limited. No buyer was ultimately found, and the company was formally dissolved in March 2022.

Business activities

The Book People ordered titles in bulk directly from publishers and suppliers, forgoing the right of return. In conjunction with Scholastic the company hosted online bookshops for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

's ''TV Book Club'',

CITV CITV is a British children's morning programming block on ITV2 and formerly a free-to-air channel owned by ITV plc. CITV, then Children's ITV, launched on 3 January 1983 as a late afternoon programming block on the ITV network for children aged ...

's '' Bookaboo'', and the ''Big Book Babble'' programme. Between 2008 and 2014 it hosted a biennial ''Queen of Teen'' award for authors of teen fiction. Winners were Louise Rennison (2008), Cathy Cassidy (2010), Maureen Johnson (2012) and

Juno Dawson Juno Dawson (born 10 July 1981) is an English author of young adult fiction and non-fiction. Dawson's notable works include '' This Book Is Gay'', ''Mind Your Head'', ''Margot & Me'', ''The Gender Games'', ''Clean'', ''Meat Market'', and the ser ...

(2014).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Book People Book selling websites Companies based in Surrey Retail companies established in 1988 1988 establishments in the United Kingdom Retail companies disestablished in 2022