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Books Businesses

Can Bookshop.org Save Independent Bookstores? (yahoo.com) 90

The Los Angeles Times recently checked in on Bookshop.org, an online bookseller, as it pulled in its first $1 million to help local bookstores across America (thanks partly to a partnership with Simon & Schuster). "(This milestone) means that we're accomplishing our mission of being a real meaningful support for independent bookstores," said Andy Hunter, Bookshop's founder and CEO. "We're exceedingly pleased with how much we've been able to earn for the stores and many stores are also grateful."

Bookshop, a Certified B corporation, was launched in January with a mission to help indie bookstores, which for years fought to compete with chains like Barnes & Noble and then the online retail giant Amazon. "Our goal is to take the conscious consumers away from Amazon and put them in a channel that supports local independent businesses and keeps bookstores in their communities," said Hunter, which "are really essential to our cultural fabric when it comes to books." Customers can choose to purchase from a specific indie bookstore affiliated with Bookshop or buy directly from the site.

But Hunter doesn't expect to beat the e-commerce behemoth -- only to help its competitors survive: "I expect Amazon will continue to sell more books than us for all eternity. We're not trying to sell more books than them, but we are trying to get customers who care about their downtowns, their quality of life and the world that they want to live in to make a switch."

The article notes that as lockdowns forced nonessential businesses to temporarily close, some bookstores "have turned to Bookshop to keep their businesses running." The Harvard Bookstore even created a special page touting its "Weird History" books.

"Indie stores that sell through Bookshop.org get 30% of every sale," reports the Los Angeles Times. "Affiliate stores that send in referrals also get a 10% commission, compared with Amazon's 4.5%. And for every sale made directly on Bookshop or through a referral, 10% is added to an earnings pool that is then distributed to indie bookstores every six months."
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Can Bookshop.org Save Independent Bookstores?

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  • 70%??? (Score:1, Informative)

    Bookstore takes 70% of every sale. Amazon takes 15%. You can sell books on Amazon. I get don't get it.

    • I get don't get it.

      Exactly

    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      Bookstore takes 70% of every sale. Amazon takes 15%. You can sell books on Amazon. I get don't get it.

      You don't seem to know much about the book business. I think you're confusing self-published e-books with major publishers here. This story is talking about consumers books sold from the major publishers, not a half-dozen sales via self publishing. Self publishing is a different business.

      Yes, authors can get 85% of the sale price if they want to sell stuff themselves via the Amazon marketplace. But when a major publisher-- Macmillan, say-- sells books via Amazon, no, Amazon takes a heck of a lot more th

  • I really don't get the love for independent book stores. They generally don't have the best pricing, selection, hours, or any other thing that would make me want to choose them over going to a larger book store or just shopping online.

    • Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LatencyKills ( 1213908 ) on Monday May 11, 2020 @08:08AM (#60047426)
      My love of independent bookstores (speaking as a guy who is considering buying one to run in my retirement) is their offbeat selection. Can you get 70o copies of Grisham's latest tree-killer? No, and frankly there's no point in them trying to complete in that realm. Instead you'll find local authors, independent authors, small press circulations, and books of regional interest. You'll find a staff actually interested in the books they sell and for regular customers have recommendations based on books they've read far better than Amazon's algorithm can do. But if you're not particularly picky about what you read, and are fine with Amazon driving everyone who isn't Stephen King out of writing, shop wherever you please.
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        What? Amazon has more "local authors, independent authors, small press circulations, and books of regional interest" than any local bookstore. In fact, Amazon is the largest PUBLISHER of offbeat materials on the planet. Anyone can publish on Amazon.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          But it has zero curation. You want to plow through the unending field of chaff to find the wheat, have at it.
        • You maybe ought to think about the fact that your constant trolling causes you to be consistently modded down to -1 even when you have something of value to say.

          • Is he trolling or just bonkers by conventional standards though? Trolling implies taking a position you really don’t hold or making statements that aren’t earnest mostly to ruffle feathers and get people worked up enough to carry on the ensuing fight without you.

            Sure it’s fun to throw a bit of gas on the fire from time to time, but usually when doing that it’s more fun to sit back and watch it burn. Anyone who keeps jumping back in probably just believes exactly what they say, eve
        • In fact, Amazon is the largest PUBLISHER of offbeat materials on the planet. Anyone can publish on Amazon.

          From the post you replied to (emphasis mine):

          My love of independent bookstores (speaking as a guy who is considering buying one to run in my retirement) is their offbeat selection.

          Amazon has so much choice (and so little selection) that sure, if you know what you want it might be useful; if you're bookshopping for discovery, a store where the books have been selected is often a better bet. The reality is that most indies will order up whatever you're looking for anyway.

          • My response dealt with two of his comments - one, his assertion that he'd rather go to a big box bookstore instead of an independent, and two, he'd rather go to Amazon. The piece you have quoted above was in reference to his first comment. Yes, Amazon obviously has a larger selection.
        • And those books that are published in house by Amazon are not checked for formatting or quality. They are just whatever .pdf some schmuck sends to Amazon. Buying classics off of Amazon is pointless because the ones from real publishers are the same price as elsewhere while the cheap ones are books that people self publish through Amazon and the formatting, fonts, and overall quality is such that you wonâ(TM)t want to read them.

          The fact that anyone can publish on Amazon sounds like a feature, but in rea

      • But if you're not particularly picky about what you read, and are fine with Amazon driving everyone who isn't Stephen King out of writing, shop wherever you please.

        I love bookstores and I'd like to see independent bookstores thrive, but the above statement is just plain wrong. Amazon is driving an enormous self-publishing trend, and makes a much deeper back catalog available than any brick and mortar store possibly could. The great thing about bookstores isn't the books, it's the experience. Wandering through the stacks, grabbing a half-dozen interesting titles and settling into a worn and comfy chair to look through them... that's what bookstores are about, and wha

        • Amazon is helping with printing, but not so much selling. As an independent author, my books are available on Amazon, but I almost never sell a book there. I use them (CreateSpace) as a printer, and I sell them through independent bookstores who will feature my book, hold a signing, and put it on their "books we love" shelf, hang my poster in their window, giveaway my bookmarks, and all that kind of stuff. I've personally never found anything on Amazon - a book, a tool, a food item, anything - that I did
          • I buy a lot of books on Amazon (mostly fiction) from self-published authors who don't sell through any other channel. Their stuff is good enough that they could sell through a traditional publisher but they don't need to (and, with at least one, I almost wish he would because a publisher would make him use an editor -- great worldbuilder and storyteller and decent prose writer, but so many little grammatical and word choice errors...).

      • by nasor ( 690345 )
        The huge Barnes & Noble near my house has a large "local" section that has more local stuff than most indie bookstores. It's a very small percentage of their shelf space, but they have so much shelf space that even a small percentage of it still ends up being a ton of stuff.
      • by rho ( 6063 )

        You'll find a staff actually interested in the books they sell and for regular customers have recommendations based on books they've read far better than Amazon's algorithm can do

        Exactly this. Especially if you have kids. They can help your bookworm child find a new favorite series that you will likely not know even exists. Just setting your older kids free to wander and find something that interests them is better than an algorithm.

      • Isn't that a service best offered by websites dedicated to recommendation, though? Or a free forum? Does there really need to be a physical space designated for receiving literary recommendations? Does it really need to be limited to the two people working the counter at your local bookstore? Wouldn't you get better recommendations with a broader group of more highly paid curators? Isn't this exactly the sort of thing the Internet is really good at?

        • I don't tend to read book reviews and instead buy based on word of mouth from friends, but my perception is that 100% of online reviews are gamed. I'm an independent author, and I get emails every week offering 5-star reviews for about 10 cents each (plus the cost of the book if I want it verified). If I buy in bulk - 1000 reviews or more, that drops to under a nickel.
          • it may be that "5 star reviews" are not considered as any reason to read the book.

            People who buy based on reviews are not buying based on having a certain number of stars. You have to have both 5 star reviews that gives reasons that resonate with readers, or else 4 star reviews that say good things a reader agrees are good, but then makes a complaint that sounds legit but that they don't care about.

            The don't merely look at your review "score," they actually read the reviews and they weigh the content carefu

        • It's the kind of thing the internet thinks it's good at, but is actually terrible at.
          I have found most of my favorite books previously by being in a bookstore, asking staff, or seeing local recommendations and trying it out onsite. If I like it, I buy it. If I don't , I move on.
          The internet is like a giant robot, with four billion competing opinions, telling me what to do, along with vague people gaming the rating system, unscrupulous sellers selling cheap copies, you name it.

    • I like supporting my local small businesses which include independent book stores because I like walking (and driving) through my part of town and not seeing a bunch of empty buildings. That's what we'll get if everyone shops on Amazon.

      • This is exactly right.
        Even more frightening, there are large groups of society now who like this.

      • because I like walking (and driving) through my part of town and not seeing a bunch of empty buildings

        Unlikely. Right now new buildings of all types are built. If there is less demand for retail on major streets and at malls, less new retail units will be included in new construction. If the surplus is really bad, many of the former retail units will become offices. There are a number offices like that in my city at the edge of downtown that, once upon a time, were strip-malls on the edge of town!

        These are not specialized buildings, they can be used for anything, and they customarily are repurposed.

  • by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Monday May 11, 2020 @07:36AM (#60047342)

    "Indie stores that sell through Bookshop.org get 30% of every sale,"

    That's the reverse of what the App stores make and the book stores still have a physical product to acquire and ship out with the 30% that they receive. The 10% of every sale split between every seller isn't going to add up to much when there's a lot of bookstores as part of the ecosystem.

    In the article there's a quote from a store owner/operator that says they are a small store and don't have the knowledge/time to build a site. But if this site is taking 70% of your income then it's time to learn or find something else. Either than or their prices are so high that nobody is going to buy them except for a few people very dedicated to the local stores. They would be much better off going with someplace like Square Space or Shopify which allows them to build a site quickly and has the payment processing already built in. Sure they rip people off with the processing fees but not 70% off.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's not as easy as just building a website though. You have to get people to come to it as well.

      That's why Amazon and eBay are doing so well. Everyone goes there to look for stuff. They don't even bother checking other sites, especially if they have Amazon Prime. They probably couldn't name five other bookstore sites, and even if they could and actually looked for the book there unless the price differential is large they aren't going to bother making an account and dealing with yet another password and re

      • Solve this? Solve what? Why are local bookstores something that need to be saved? At the end of the day they are businesses. If they can't survive it is because they are not fulfilling the needs of enough people at a desirable price sufficient to cover their expenses.

        We're not talking about women's shelters or clinics in poorer neighborhoods or some other critical resources that we should support outside the laws of supply and demand.

        If Nordstrom's was having trouble competing with Amazon would we "try
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          No local bookstores, the monopoly that a few big retail sites have on the internet.

          • Yes, got it. Why do we need local bookstores?
            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              To stop there being a monopoly.

              Well I didn't necessarily mean they had to be local to you, a bunch of independent online ones would be fine too. I just don't want Amazon to be the only place selling books.

              • I agree Amazon being in monopoly control of anything is bad. Yet, we still have public libraries. Do you suggest we prop up local book stores with tax dollars from the same people who prefer Amazon over those same stores?

                So it'll look like what? One employee sitting in a bookstore all day getting paid to not serve the zero customers and restock all the books not being sold?
                • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  I was thinking some kind of technical solution. It's basically two problems, discoverability and having a shared checkout system.

                  • Discover ability of new content or of the non-Amazon option? Both are very expensive marketing problems. New authors on Amazon have a Herculean task to get noticed.

                    Distribution is a solved problem if you can get someone to find and buy.

                    Either way, I don't see how it is the tax payers' responsibility or role to support people with inefficient business models. The same businesses they will not directly support with their post-tax take home income.

                    If you make buggy whips in an era of automobiles you're not
          • Seems like false dillema. If we look at other sectors, it is not that one big online monopoly vs. local physical shops, it is more like there are few big eshops and many small eshops (often specialised for some domain). I do not see a reason why similar development would not be with book shops (i.e., physical shops replaced with both big and small e-shops).

            • Seems like false dillema. If we look at other sectors, it is not that one big online monopoly vs. local physical shops, it is more like there are few big eshops and many small eshops (often specialised for some domain). I do not see a reason why similar development would not be with book shops (i.e., physical shops replaced with both big and small e-shops).

              This is what I'm looking for. The NewEgg of books. Amazon leaves one great gaping hole in all of commerce: competent curation. They have utterly abrogated the curation role, leaving it to shitty algorithms that can be gamed, and even profiting off of their shitty curation by selling search terms to the highest bidder. NewEgg earns my repeat business year after year by making sure their search results are clean and by making their categories relevant and correct. Amazon doesn't care what trash shows up

        • So physical needs are necessary, but mental needs are not-unless they come from one monolithic business
          You may wish to consider changing your username, and I'm not really that smart to realize this.

      • by guruevi ( 827432 )

        They can sell books directly through Amazon as a 'product' and Amazon keeps only a small commission. They will even get you discount shipping. 70% is usury.

        • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          They can sell books directly through Amazon as a 'product' and Amazon keeps only a small commission. They will even get you discount shipping. 70% is usury.

          Except that's not it. bookshop.org is offering bookstores a 30% commission to send customers to their site. Basically, they are using Bookstores as advertisers to get customers to order from them, instead of from Amazon.

          It's not a site that bookstores use as a front-end to sell stuff from their stores; it's a site bookstores send people to for books they don't have in stock. Not sure if this is going to "save" bookstores, though. https://lithub.com/bookshop-or... [lithub.com]

    • As best as I can tell, this isn't like Amazon or Apple or eBay where the site acts as a website to list your own products, takes a cut of your revenue, and you have to process and fulfill the order. Bookshop.org fulfills the order [washingtonpost.com]. If you're an affiliate and send a viewer to the site who purchase a book, you get 10% of the purchase price. If you're a bookstore and set up a virtual storefront, you get 30%. But in both cases, the order handling, physical book acquisition, and shipping are all being provide
    • Hi, full disclosure, I work at Bookshop. You're missing the amount the publisher of the book gets paid (generally about 50%), and the costs of fulfillment. The accurate comparison is, Bookstores earn 40-45% of the list price books they sell in-store, and 30% of the books they sell through Bookshop. But they don't have any overhead costs with the books they sell through us.
  • If they survive -- and some will -- it will be because, like all other surviving retailers, they provide something besides the "race to the bottom" pricing that Amazon and other eTailers do. It will be a combination of what products they stock and what they can get, the experience and knowledge of the staff, and perhaps too the shopping experience itself. E.g., Best Buy is a rare example of a big box store which figured out a way to reinvent itself to stay relevant as a retailer by strongly focus on #2 ab

    • What drew people into local bookstores was lack of other options to buy books. Books are a commodity. The copy I get from the local store is exactly the same as the one from amazon. Except: Amazon usually charges less and delivers to my door the next day and lets me shop from my laptop or kindle.
      • No, what drew people into bookstores was walking around and finding new books or authors.
        Bookstore: Hi, here's some books you may be interested in. We don't really know your interests, but you're not a moron, and can choose a subject. These are what we personally like, and here is some new stuff.
        Amazon: Hi, here's four trillion books. Maybe you like this one? Some people like it. The book publisher certainly does, and they paid us to highlight it. Are the reviews real? who knows! We've noticed before you li

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      Independent book store have a problem and it isn't Amazon. If there is a competitor it is Powells. Powells has used the imagery or independent bookstore to build a huge following. People will pay the premium to think that they are doing good by not buying from Amazon, yet are they? Powells in family owned, like Walmart it family owned, but does that mean they are independent. Unfortunately today independent almost means non-profit. In my town, the truly independent bookstores are owned by groups that li
      • Powells is an independent bookstore.

        You just hate them because they're successful.

        Hating the rich is nice and all, but you can't actually eat them.

        If you thought "independent" meant "non-profit" you were merely illiterate, not insightful.

        • by fermion ( 181285 )
          Powell’s is a family owned bookstore. Confusing family owned and independent is equally delusional.
  • As much as I like the Idea of small specialty businesses, but outside large cities (which are often hard to start a small business because cities are expensive) it is difficult for specialty businesses to be competitive. While they may offer a wonderful shopping experience, that isn't enough. Convince and Price are the biggest sellers.
    Convince is often the largest driver, I need a tool, and there is a big box hardware store close by. It is a quick drive, the chance what I am looking for is there, the stor

    • by rot16 ( 4603585 )

      I believe the word you are looking for is convenience.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Japanese bookstores have been feeling the squeeze too but are surviving by providing reasons to keep going back to them.

      They rotate stock a lot, especially used books. There are big markets where bookshops swap boxes of books regularly so that your local one has a constant supply of new stock. Gets people in and helps books find that one person who is interesting in an old edition of some textbook.

      In the UK bookshops are boring. The used ones are largely static, only worth one visit. The chains just carry t

  • instead of a 'marketplace/aggregator' type website, my bookstore belongs to a chain. The chain has a webstore with a massive selection, and you can order for (free) delivery via the local bookstore (in addition to the usual mail order options).

    So I get the best of both worlds: a local, browsable selection of books and the entire 'long tail' available to order. Even specialized books can often be ordered.

  • The last book i bought was from abes online store purely because the revision i could not determine on amazon's platform - buying the ten year version cheap was not my plan when a newer rev existed.

    Most of my personal reading i use a public library and will continue to use.

  • This is not new. Small sellers have been able to sell through AbeBooks for decades.

  • How does a bookstore contribute to "the fabric of community"? By employing people as shopkeepers? I'm sorry, but keeping stock and making change is a lowly skill that can easily be automated - and is. Reviews you say? recommendations? We have systems in place for that as well, starting from reviews through blogs and more. This is an archaic job no different than a grocer and is made obsolete by technology. Adapt or die.
    • You need it.

      Go watch The Brain Center at Whipple's from 1964 ... Watch it twice. [wikipedia.org]

      Closing narration

      There are many bromides applicable here: 'too much of a good thing', 'tiger by the tail', 'as you sow so shall you reap'. The point is that, too often, Man becomes clever instead of becoming wise; he becomes inventive and not thoughtful; and sometimes, as in the case of Mr. Whipple, he can create himself right out of existence. As in tonight's tale of oddness and obsolescence, in the Twilight Zone.

      (Emphasis mine)

    • How does a bookstore contribute to "the fabric of community".

      The fact that you even need to ask this means your judgement is suspect.

  • The last time I went to a local indie bookstore intending to buy a book, it was $50 vs $27 on Amazon. I want to support local stores and am willing to pay somewhat more, but come on! Almost double???
    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      The last time I went to a local indie bookstore intending to buy a book, it was $50 vs $27 on Amazon. I want to support local stores and am willing to pay somewhat more, but come on! Almost double???

      Yes, you're paying for the store; the ability to go to a physical place and browse the actual physical books. Amazon doesn't have that.

      Unfortunately, what people do is to go to the physical store, do their shopping by browsing the books taking advantage of the physical bookstore, then pull out their phones and order on Amazon. So what they're doing is taking advantage of the benefits of a real bookstore, but not paying for it.

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      We force brick and mortar bookstores to provide abundant, cheap parking at their own expense, and we heavily subsidize the roads to make shipping things to your door artificially cheap, and then we wonder why brick and mortar bookstore prices are so high compared to online booksellers.

      We're just not very bright, are we?

  • Doing just this, but its for everything including books. No idea when they're coming to the USA though https://near.shop/business/ [near.shop]

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