The inaugural Pioneer Valley Bookstore Crawl was held recently in Western Mass., the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported.
The crawl began in July and continued until August 30. Seven bookstores participated: Amherst Books in Amherst; Booklink Booksellers in Northampton; Book Moon Books in Easthampton; Broadside Bookshop in Northampton; Carle Museum Bookshop in Amherst; High Five Books in Florence; and Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley.
Customers who completed their passports by visiting every store were entered in a drawing for the grand prize package of a $50 gift certificate for each store.
Organizers Kinsey Foreman, manager of High Five Books, and Laura Colodner, kids department coordinator at Odyssey Bookshop, were inspired to create a bookstore crawl for their own area after attending a New England Independent Booksellers Association panel about them.
They called the inaugural year a "prototype year," noting that they had intentionally started with a smaller group of bookstores. They also chose to have the bookstore crawl during the summer in the hopes that it boosts sales in an otherwise slow time of the year.
The response has been strong, with Foreman telling the Gazette: "It gives me a lot of hope for it growing and getting even bigger next year."