A good friend of mine is an independent bookstore owner. What does that mean? It means she runs a small shop in a small town and researches and studies and reads to find the books that will best suit her community. Incredible, right? (Hares & Hatters in Idaho)
In a fascinating convo with her, she said the following, “Amazon sells books for less than bookstores can wholesale buy those books and we should be asking ourselves why…”
I’ve been thinking about this ever since. Amazon controls authors and they control what books are seen by which people shopping on Amazon. Authors and publishers don’t just give Amazon a cut of proceeds but they also pay Amazon to promote specific stories. Imagine that Dr Pepper doesn’t just give Walmart a chunk of money made on Dr Pepper, but that Dr Pepper also had to pay Walmart so allow shoppers to SEE the Dr Pepper on the shelves. Basically, they screw both buyers and sellers and we can use our local used bookstores as well as libraries and INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES to get our books.
Wanna know something else super fabulous? OF COURSE YOU DO.
bookshop.org is a NON-PROFIT designed to help you shop online, while also benefitting the indie bookstore OF YOUR CHOICE.
But wait, you’d like to benefit your local bookstore with audiobooks? Libro.fm – you can download the app, join a monthly program (or not) and have a brilliant way to listen to audiobooks, while helping keep indie stores alive.
Do not let the distribution of stories fall from only ONE place.
*steps off soapbox
*bows
Jo Writes Books 