Tubby and Coo's Mid-City Book Shop in New Orleans, La., and White Birch Books in North Conway, N.H., have each won $2,000 prizes in the Blackout Bookstore Challenge, publisher Sourcebooks announced. The contest, to promote the U.S. release of Marc Elsberg's disaster thriller Blackout (June 6), about terrorist attacks wiping out the electrical grids in Europe and the United States, called for independent bookstores to put together a #BlackoutChallenge social media campaign and asked readers to vote for the indie most likely to survive the blackout.
Tubby and Coo's won the prize for receiving the most reader votes, while White Birch Books won for having the most creative social media campaign, which involved posting videos of staff members "surviving" in the bookstore. In addition to the prizes given to White Birch Books and Tubby and Coo's, Sourcebooks awarded prizes to readers who voted for indie bookstores. The grand prize winner took home a $250 gift card for their local indie along with a blackout survival kit, featuring a tent, sleeping bag, books, a flashlight and food; 12 second-place winners each received a $50 gift card.