We have a bit of news. After twelve years running Toppsta, reading your reviews, cheering on your children's reading journeys and watching which books genuinely capture young imaginations, we've been quietly building something new and it launches today.
Readerama is a new UK marketplace for buying and selling second-hand books and a continuation of everything we've built at Toppsta.
If your house looks like a small library, you'll know the feeling. Books on the shelves, books on the stairs, books your kids have outgrown but can't quite bear to pass on. The bag for the charity shop that's been sitting by the door for three weeks, the Vinted listing that never quite happens. We see you.
We also see something that worries us deeply. Despite all our work at Toppsta and everything that people like you do to keep children reading, fewer children are reading for pleasure than ever before. Libraries are underfunded, book corners are threadbare, and for many families, new books simply aren't affordable. Reading is in crisis, and it needs practical solutions, not just good intentions. With the government's Year of Reading putting books and reading front and centre, it feels like exactly the right moment to launch this.
And just to be clear, Toppsta isn't going anywhere. We're still doing exactly what we've always done, finding the very best children's books and getting them into the hands of readers. Readerama is something we're building alongside that, not instead of it.
Why we built it
We'll be honest: we wrestled with this. We care deeply about authors, publishers and illustrators, and the second-hand market is a complicated subject in publishing. But what we kept coming back to is this: readers are already buying and selling second-hand books. They're doing it on eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Vinted, and none of what they spend there finds its way back to readers, authors, schools or the wider book community. With Readerama, that changes. The value stays where it belongs: in the hands of people who actually care about reading.
What it means in practice
Every second-hand book you buy on Readerama benefits our cause and comes from a real person: a parent, a family, a reader who loved it before you. We've been testing with a small number of sellers and have almost 1,000 books listed already. And it's not just children's books. We wanted to announce it here because if you're the kind of person who has spent years encouraging your child to read, we think that you're probably a reader too. With Readerama you can buy and sell second-hand fiction and non-fiction, adults and children's. And as we grow, profits will go back into reading initiatives: donating to schools, supporting literacy projects, fundraising for charities. It's built into the plan from day one, not something we're promising later.
Why we think you'll love it
If you've ever fantasised about running your own little bookshop, here's your chance. Every seller gets their own bookshop which they can customise with their name and colour, where you can list the books you've loved, set your own prices, and find them a reader who'll love them just as much as you.
Before I sign off, I want to be upfront, Readerama is a work in progress. There will be bugs, there will be gaps in the listings, and there will be things we have not thought of yet. We would rather launch and start raising money, than wait for perfect. If something isn't working, or isn’t clear, please drop me a line at [email protected]. Every suggestion helps.
Reading needs practical support right now, and this is ours. If you believe the same thing, come and join us. Browse, buy, list a few books you've been meaning to pass on. The bookshop is open. Come on in.
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