James Patterson Gives $500 Holiday Bonuses to Hundreds of Bookstore Employees: ‘Booksellers Save Lives’

Mar. 15, 2025

James Patterson in October 2024.Photo:Jamie McCarthy/Getty

Jamie McCarthy/Getty

James Pattersonis supporting local bookstores again this holiday season.

The 600 people working at bookstores — including Birmingham’s Thank You Books in Alabama, Cedar Falls’ The Nook in Iowa and City Lights Books in San Francisco — are each set to receive a $500 bonus.

Patterson told ABC in a statement through his publisher, Little, Brown and Company, he’s happy to support independent bookstores and their staff.

“Booksellers save lives. Period,” Patterson said. “I’m happy to be able to acknowledge them and all their hard work this holiday season.”

Patterson at SXSW in 2022.Rick Kern/FilmMagic

Rick Kern/FilmMagic

“It means everything to have him recognize and reward the valuable role booksellers play in the industry,” Hill added.

Among the recepients this year are Davis Gustafson at Thank You Books, Erin Messer at City Lights, Brandon Conrad of The Nook, Gina Marx of The Lynx in Gainesville, Fla., and Kirstin Kraig of Whale’s Tale Books in Lakewood, Colo., per ABC.

Birmingham’s Thank You Books in Alabama.Google Maps

Google Maps

Patterson has similarly donated funds to booksellers many times over the past decade. In March this year, theABAannounced that the thriller novelist would be donating another $600,000 to be split among booksellers.

“The White House is concerned about saving the airline industry and big businesses — I get that. But I’m concerned about the survival of independent bookstores, which are at the heart of main streets across the country,” Patterson said in a statement at the time, according to the the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. “I believe that books are essential. They make us kinder, more empathetic human beings. And they have the power to take us away-even momentarily-from feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and scared.”

“I hope that the funds we raise keep bookstores alive at a time when we need them the most,” he added.

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In 2014, Patterson also donated $1 million to bookstores, divvied up into prizes of $15,000 per store.

“It ranges from Andover Bookstore, where a son and daughter wrote and their father hadn’t had a raise since 1988,” he toldNPRof the initiative at the time. “Children’s Bookstore in Baltimore, they give books to schools and they want the kids to be able to keep the books. Book Passage out in California will do more book fairs with it. Little Shop of Stories down in Decatur, Ga., they’re buying a bookmobile.”

TheAlex Crossauthor added at the time that he believes the book industry deserves just as much intervention as massive industries like banks and the auto industry, simply because literature and reading is good for our culture.

“The government has stepped in to help banks, automobiles, anything where money is concerned, but nobody seems to care about books and our bookstores,” he added to NPR at the time. “And I’m telling you, American literature is in jeopardy.”

source: people.com