The Booksellers Association

The Booksellers Association of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in 1895. Open to all bookselling businesses, it offers protection, representation, and advice to all that sell books. Alongside the Publishers Association and the Society of Authors, the Booksellers Association was founded at a time when price maintenance was the most important issue facing the book industry. The BA was one of the original signatories of the Net Book Agreement. Like the Publishers Association and the Society of Authors, the Booksellers Association's remit is now far wider than concerns about price fixing. It exists to advertise bookselling, to provide representation for booksellers, and it also offers training through courses and correspondence for its members' staffs.

The Booksellers Association also operates two subsidiary companies, Book Tokens Ltd. and Booksellers Association Service House Ltd. (or BASH). Book Tokens were invented to promote reading; redeemable in any member bookshop of the Booksellers Association, they have become a common gift in Britain. BASH was founded in 1977 to provide member booksellers with a dedicated service for the promotion of the trade and bookselling initiatives. The BA also runs the Bookseller's Clearing House which enables booksellers to pay their accounts to all publishers with one cheque which will be dealt with at the Clearing House saving both money and time.