We all accept that physical books aren’t going to disappear, but that the market from them and channels supporting them will shrink. To some these may sound futile sound bites and are doomed to fail, but to others, they make the same sense that CAMRA had some forty years ago. CAMBO's aims are simple to help bookshops survive and to promote independents over chains to preserve, protect and promote physical books and finally, to protect jobs that with go with the digital books. This new book token can also be used online. Members pay £15 a year for a card which entitles them to 10% discount at participating bookstores. Within two weeks one hundred bookstores had signed up and the organiser even sold a rare copy of Casino Royal to get it off the ground.Įach CAMBO bookstore will be displaying a CAMBO sticker and it may say more about the store than anything else moving forward.
Within a week of the first Kindle TV advert the CAMBO campaign started and was greeted with a ground swell of support from used and rare book dealers, to organisations such as the PBFA and the ABA, dealers and even new book shops. In the last of the ‘Book and Magazine Collector’ a new campaign CAMBO is promoted selling and encouraging real books, or those that are not digital.
In the UK and increasingly right across Europe, beer drinkers are familiar with CAMRA, which since it was formed in 1971 has grown from strength to strength CABRA campaigns rigorously for real ale and has had a dramatic influence on beer producers, pubs and promoting ‘real’ beers that were either in danger of dying, or were waiting to find their audience.