How buying eBooks now can support your local bookstore

Books
Written By Chris Well

Bookshop.org steps up its support of independent booksellers with an eBook platform.

“Allowing indie booksellers to sell eBooks is a critical and exciting step,” says author Jonathan Maberry. “It’s a great idea that is long past due.”

Since its introduction five years ago, Bookshop.org has been helping local bookstores sell online. And now the company offers a way for indie bookstores to sell eBooks, too.

“It’s crazy that bookstores can’t sell eBooks to their customers right now,” Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter told Wired. “I know tons of people who love their local bookstore, support them in every other way, but when they need an eBook, they have to go to Amazon to buy that eBook even if they love and support their local bookstore and have ethical concerns about Amazon. We want to change that.” (“Bookshop.org Now Sells Ebooks”—WIRED)

Through Bookshop.org’s new eBook platform, independent bookstores can now finally compete with Amazon’s Kindle apps. Empowering local bookstores to sell digital products—and earn 100-percent of the profits from those sales—demonstrates Bookshop.org’s dedication to supporting local bookstores.

“Bookshop.org has always been the place to send fans from my fave bookstore, The Liberty Book Company, in Rock Hill, S.C.,” says NYT bestselling author Faith Hunter. “But until now, fans had no option to support small bookstores for eBook purchases. Now they do. Bravo, Bookshop.org! Bravo!”

Bookshop.org now offers readers a way to purchase and download eBooks from their favorite bookstores—or through Bookshop.org’s website. Available online on any web browser and through Bookshop.org apps (for Apple and Android), Bookshop’s new platform has launched with more than three million eBooks.

“As the world and its technology evolves, so does publishing,” says Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author, editor, and comic book writer. “Allowing indie booksellers to sell eBooks is a critical and exciting step that will allow them to compete in the increasingly digital marketplace, insuring that brick-and-mortar stores survive and thrive. As both a writer and a reader, I think it’s a great idea that is long past due.”

“When we launched Bookshop.org, the vision was to support local bookstores in their battle against Amazon and other online retailers,” says Hunter. “This launch represents our commitment to bookstores and their communities. We’re focused on keeping bookstores afloat and helping them flourish in the digital age.”

“This is the missing piece we’ve all been waiting for,” says Lev Grossman, author of the urban fantasy The Magicians trilogy, and whose latest book is the epic fantasy The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur. “Bookshop.org has already built a fantastic, essential ecosystem connecting bookstores with the authors and readers who love them. Now with this new eBook platform, there’s no limit to how far it can go and how big it can get.”

How Bookshop.org helps your local bookstore

Since it kicked off in 2020, Bookshop.org has been lifting up local booksellers. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores and helps them maintain their presence in local communities. When you buy a book through the Bookshop website, you get to pick the store you want to support—which means when you buy those books, the store you picked gets the profit. Since its launch, Bookshop.org has raised more than $35 million for independent bookstores in the United States alone.

And now they also help indie bookstores to sell eBooks: Browse and buy eBook titles from Bookshop.org—and then read them in the web browser or on the iPhone or Android apps. Now their new eBook app—which allows you to read through the web, iOS, and Android—works exactly the same: You get to choose your store, and it gets the money every time you buy a book.

“Part of surviving the digital age is selling digital products,” Hunter says. “If Amazon can do it, your local bookstore should be able to do it, period.”

“Many of our customers use eBooks for their accessibility, especially for folks with low vision,” adds Cierra Cook, owner of Spoke & Word Books. “Having an alternative to Amazon is groundbreaking.”

Digitally-inclined readers can directly support the bookstore of their choosing by ordering through Bookshop.org, ensuring the full profit goes to supporting that chosen store. Alternatively, profits from orders without a specified bookstore are distributed among all participating bookstores, further benefiting the literary community. To learn more about how you can help these communities thrive, please visit Bookshop.org/info/about-us.

Chris Well

Chris Well been a writer pretty much his entire life. (Well, since his childhood.) Over the years, he has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio, and books. He now is the chief of the website Monster Complex, celebrating monster stories in lit and pop culture. He also writes horror comedy fiction that embraces Universal Monsters, 1960s sitcoms, 1980s action movies, and the X-Files.

https://chriswell.substack.com/
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