AUTHOR and publisher Paul Salveson has come up with a novel idea to reach book lovers as traditional bookshops face temporary closure due to the second lockdown.

The Bolton writer has decided get out in his bike and launch The Bolton Bicycling Bookshop.

Paul who runs The Lancashire Loominary, a small publishing business, said: "Marketing and distribution is always a problem for small publishers.

“The internet helps but it can be very impersonal. I like building links with my readers and being able to deliver a signed copy of a book to a customer’s doorstep is a real pleasure.”

Paul has just published a new book celebrating the West Pennine Moors – Moorlands, Memories and Reflections. It marks the centenary of Allen Clarke’s book Moorlands and Memories which was about cycle rides and rambles around the West Pennines.

Paul, who writes about local interest and history, said: “Clarke was an avid cyclist and it’s highly appropriate that I’m able to deliver the book by bike.”

Paul doesn’t claim that the idea is completely original.

He explained: “Allen Clarke often brought along copies of his books to sign and sell on his ‘Speedwell’ cycling club trips in the 1920s. Another Northern writer who had a similar idea was Todmorden novelist William Holt who would deliver copies of his books on horseback!”

"There’s a definite green agenda with The Bolton Bicycling Bookshop. It would be ironic if my book was distributed by polluting delivery vans; using the bike is fun and doesn’t pollute. I do all I can to use local suppliers and my latest book is published by Bolton-based Minerva Press. Today, so many books are produced abroad which doesn’t do much to help either the environment or our local economies.”

Details of The Bolton Bicycling Bookshop can be found on the Lancashire Loominary website www.lancashireloominary.co.uk , or ring Paul on 07795 008691, email info@lancashireloominary.co.uk.