Dallas-based Texas Bookman, the wholesale division of Half Price Books, is launching Namaste, a trade show for New Age, metaphysics, and spirituality publishers and wholesalers. The event will be held June 5–7 at the company’s 21,000-square-foot showroom, a former car dealership, in Carrollton, Tex.
The venue is also home of the company’s other trade show, the Texas Remainder Expo, affectionately known as T*Rex, which focuses on selling remaindered books and hurts, and is this year being held May 12–14.
Namaste is targeted at authors, booksellers, exhibitors and publishers of metaphysical, spiritual, and esoteric books and sidelines. The show will collaborate with the Coalition of Visionary Resources (COVR), the trade association for the mind, body, spirit marketplace, which will host its COVR Visionary Awards Dinner on June 6, during the event.
"Since acquiring U.K. distributor Speaking Tree [in 2023] and its publishing imprint, Lost Library, we've been eager to support the industry with our own brand of trade show," said James Palmer, director of proprietary publishing for Half Price Books. "We take pride that our shows are easily accessible and affordable, and that buyers and sellers are treated with equal respect and hospitality.”
The announcement of the trade show follows a period of growth for the religious books category, which includes New Age, metaphysics, spirituality, and occult titles, per sales data from the Association of American Publishers. In 2024, the year for which the AAP latest data is available, the religious books segment saw the strongest sales growth of any category for the year, with sales up 22.8%, to $2.01 billion.
