FAQs

What is the Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl?

The Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl is a nine-day event that celebrates Indie Bookstores in and around the Pittsburgh region. The goal of this event is to encourage local book lovers to support and explore the independent bookstores that exist in their neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods of Pittsburgh.

Where will the Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl take place?

The book crawl will take place at all participating bookstores. There is no one centralized location for this event — instead, you will get to visit bookstores in the region and discover all the great offerings each store provides.

When will the Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl take place?

Dates for the 2025 Crawl are May 10-18. This event will take place rain or shine throughout that nine day period.

How can I participate in the Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl?

During the dates of the crawl stop at any participating stores and pick up a Passport Book. You can get your passport book stamped at any location you visit during the event. Collect enough stamps in your book and you can be entered to win some fun prizes.

How much does it cost to participate in the Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl?

The Passport Book is free (while supplies last). We encourage you to support the indie bookstores you visit with a purchase as well as a Passport stamp - stock up on some great new books for the summer or vacation while you shop the Book Crawl.

Why do I need a passport book?

Passport books contain information on each participating location in them, so they’re a great resource if you want to plan a big trip to a lot of indie bookstores in the area (highly recommended). Passport Books must also be stamped at each location to show that you visited that store. Once you have enough stamps in your passport book, you can be entered to win a prize from the Book Crawl. A stamped passport book is the only way to be entered to win a prize from the Book Crawl.

Is this a family-friendly event?

The Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl is a family friendly event. We encourage families to participate in the crawl together throughout the duration of the event.

How many stamps will I need to collect to be entered into a prize raffle?

A minimum of six stamps is required to be entered into the raffle prize. We say minimum because we encourage you to visit more stops if you have the resources to do so.

Do I need to make a purchase at each location to earn a stamp?

You do not. We have aimed to keep this as low-cost as possible for any participants. Even if you can’t purchase something at a store, we always appreciate social media tags, online reviews, and general good vibes being spread to the world. They’re all free and are appreciated.

How do I enter myself into the raffle?

When you are at the final store of your own personal crawl (and have obtained a minimum of 6 passport stamps) you can tear out the final page of your passport with your contact information on it and leave it with the staff at that store. We will collect them all once the crawl is done. The passport is yours to keep as a souvenir.

You must submit your raffle page to a participating Book Crawl store before the end of business hours on Sunday, May 18, 2025 to be included in the raffle. We will not be able to accept drop-offs after that time.

What kind of stores are participating in the Book Crawl?

Here’s our list of participating stores for The Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl. We have new bookstores, used bookstores, kids-only bookstores, adult-only bookstores, pop-up stores, comic book locations, and more. We hope there’s a little bit of something for everyone to discover with our participants.

Will stores be holding sales during the Crawl?

Each store is free to participate in The Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl in any way they feel is beneficial to their unique location. Stores are free to offer sales, but that is not a requirement to participate in the Book Crawl.

Please keep in mind - if a store is not offering a sale during the Book Crawl, it might be due to financial limitations. Independent bookstores fight every day to keep their doors open, and sometimes big sales cannot be worked into a store’s bottom line.

We encourage you to support all stores participating in the Crawl, even if they are unable to provide a discount to you.

Will stores be offering extra/extended hours for the event?

Each store is free to set extra and extended hours for the length of the Crawl as they see beneficial. Your passport book will be a great guide, with a QR code for each store that will allow you to look up addresses, hours, and any special events quickly and efficiently.

Will stores be holding special events during the Crawl?

Each store is free to participate in The Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl in any way they feel is beneficial to their unique location. Stores are free to offer events, but that is not a requirement to participate in the Book Crawl.

Your passport book will also be a great guide, with a QR code for each store that will allow you to look up addresses, hours, and any special events a store might be hosting.

I’m an author/vendor/artist/etc. who would like to participate in The Great Pittsburgh Book Crawl. How can I make this happen?

As this is our first year putting this together, we have no centralized planning committee for scheduling this. Our best suggestion is to reach out to one/some of your local indie bookstores that are participating in the Book Crawl to see if they would be able to accommodate you during the Crawl.

Based on the success of this year’s Book Crawl, this may be something we are better equipped to handle in future Crawls. We’re all new to this, please forgive us as we work through this first event as a team.

I’d like to volunteer to help with the Book Crawl, how can I?

Hello wonderful person! Volunteers are always appreciated! If you’d like to volunteer, please head back to our Home Page and contact us through the Stay In Touch form at the bottom. List that you’d like to be a volunteer.

We are not sure how many volunteer positions we will have at this time. Many of the volunteer jobs may include pre-event volunteering, such as dropping passport books off at participating locations.

I have a question that wasn’t answered here, where can I find an answer?

Contact us HERE and we’ll be in touch ASAP. Please keep in mind the contact form is monitored by only two people, so be patient if it takes us a few days to get back to you.