By: Heshy Parker
Independent bookstores have had a curse placed on them for years. It’s called Amazon.
A guy from Brooklyn is attempting to remove the curse.
Andy Hunter says he is recording sales of $150,000 a day moving books a from independent bookstores. His web site, Bookshop.org, opened for business in late January of this year, and has taken off. The mission, as he sees it, is to keep independent bookstores alive before the market gets swallowed up by Amazon.
“We felt a real sense of urgency,” Hunter told the New York Post in a recent interview. “It was about how much Amazon has taken over the book market, and needing to get independent bookstores situated so they could hold their own.”
The pandemic led to the closure of a great many bookstores throughout the United States. But with Amazon deeming books to be non-essential, deliveries have taken longer than usual.
“Now, there are days where we’re selling $150,000 worth of books a day, and we’re currently supporting over 450 stores,” Hunter told the Post. As of press time, the newspaper noted, the site had generated more than $3,322,575 for independents.
Books are sent to customers via Ingram, the nation’s biggest book wholesaler. “The bookstores don’t have to touch a book. If you’re a small bookstore, you don’t have a lot of resources to take online orders, to build fancy websites,” Hunter told the Post. “We created a simple model to tackle all the hurdles to e-commerce. It takes 30 minutes to build a site on Bookshop. All they need to do is let their customers know they’re on it.”
As Hunter describes his goal on his web site, it is effectively an online bookstore created “to financially support local, independent bookstores.
We believe that bookstores are essential to a healthy culture. They’re where authors can connect with readers, where we discover new writers, where children get hooked on the thrill of reading that can last a lifetime. They’re also anchors for our downtowns and communities.”
As books purchased increased over the internet, Hunter continued, “we wanted to create an easy, convenient way for you to get your books and support bookstores at the same time. If you want to find a specific local bookstore to support, find them on our map and they’ll receive the full profit off your order. Otherwise, your order will contribute to an earnings pool that will be evenly distributed among independent bookstores (even those that don’t use Bookshop).”
