Readerama is open!

Well, this is it.

After months of building, testing, packing boxes and way too many late nights, Readerama is officially open. And if you’re reading this, you’re among the first people through the door, which means a lot to us.

This week feels like a big moment. Not just because we’ve launched, but because it proves that what started as an idea, a book marketplace built by readers, for readers, is now a real place where real books are changing hands.

Why we built it

If you’ve read my earlier post about why I launched Readerama, you’ll know that this has been a long time coming. But for those of you who are new here, the short version is this:

Reading is in crisis. Fewer children are reading for pleasure than ever before, libraries are underfunded, and for many families, new books simply aren’t affordable. At the same time, the second-hand book market is thriving, but almost all of that activity happens on eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Vinted, where none of the value finds its way back to readers, authors, schools or the wider book community.

That felt like a missed opportunity and Readerama is our attempt to put it right. I have been running Toppsta.com for over ten years with a simple belief: that reading brings so many benefits to children, far beyond simply learning to read, and that books should reach the families and schools that need them most. Readerama grows from the same roots, and as we build, profits will go back into schools, literacy activities and charities. That has been part of the plan from day one.

Thank you

Before we get to the books, I want to say a genuine thank you to the people who helped us get here. To our early testers who gave feedback on the site, flagged the bugs and told us what was missing, your patience and feedback made Readerama better than it would have been without you. I’d like to say a particular thank you to my husband Gino and also Svitlana, Olena, Siobhan, Patsy, Chris, Tracey, Nina, Debbie, Jo, Taslin and my OEG crew for all their support and suggestions and to Katie who created our gorgeous bookshop design. And to our first bookshops (Kika, Layla, Star O, Laura, Cassie, Corinne, Bevann, CJ, Team Owen and Lou), who trusted us early and listed their stock before we had any customers to show them, we are really grateful. 

This is your launch as much as ours.

What you’ll find

We have nearly 1,000 books listed across children’s and adult, fiction and non-fiction, textbooks and everything in between. Honestly, we have gaps, plenty of them, and we know it. Building a marketplace from scratch means starting somewhere, and we are starting here. It would be easy to wait until the range felt complete, but the truth is a marketplace is never complete. It grows with its community, and that community is you.

Over the coming months we are hoping to bring many more bookshops on board, more sellers adding their books, with the selection growing every week. Why not join us and set up your bookshop today? You’ll find a step by step process here.

In the meantime, here are some of my favourite categories to browse right now. The stock is good, the prices are fair, and I think you will find some genuinely great reads. Literary fiction, Kids’ graphic novels, Crime & Thrillers, History books.

A small team, a big belief

We are still small, just a handful of us who care deeply about books and reading. But we believe that a marketplace built around readers, rather than algorithms, can do something genuinely good for the book world. Launch day is exciting and a little nerve-wracking in equal measure, but mostly it just feels like the beginning of something we are proud of.

One last thing

We 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 learn than wait for perfect. If something is not working, or isn’t clear, or there’s a category you think we need to add, please drop me a line at [email protected]. Every suggestion helps.

Here’s to the first chapter.

Georgina