Help Local Bookstores ‘Muddle Through Somehow’
It’s that time of year– the season when we used to spend hours trying to find each other the perfect, thoughtful gift. The season when we now just text our family members Amazon links and say “Hey, get me this.”
I’m as guilty of it as anybody. More so, in fact. I hate crowds and traffic and fake sales holidays, so I made online shopping my default years ago, long before Covid-19. The difference this year, for me, is that I’m trying to spread the love around more — particularly to local booksellers.
Remember, Amazon now controls more than half of the U.S. print market and third-quarters of all ebook sales. This dominance “allows it to engage in systematic below-cost pricing of books to squash competition in the book selling industry as a whole,” according to a statement by the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild, and the American Booksellers Association. “The ongoing COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating the problem: it continues to threaten the financial well-being of authors, publishers, and booksellers, some of whom will not survive the year.”
Here are three simple alternatives to the Bezos Behemoth when shopping for books online:
Your Local Independent Bookstore
It seems obvious, but first check to see if your local independent bookstore has its own website or can take your order over the phone. In South Florida, my favorite option is Books & Books in Coral Gables. Their website, booksandbooks.com, is a tad tricky – you have to get the spelling of titles and authors exactly right in the search bar or it comes up empty – but the extra effort is worth it. When I placed a large order this summer, I got a hand-written thank you note in the shipping box. It feels good to know you are making a difference.
Powell’s Books
One of the top independent bookstores in the country, Powell’s is a great place to buy books online if you don’t have a local store that can fill your order. I recently bought several books off their website, www.powells.com, and I was pleasantly surprised by the ease of whole process. Not only was the site simple to navigate, but their prices were more competitive than I expected. I spent a little extra for guaranteed holiday shipping, but there was no other downside. I’ll definitely try them again when my local store doesn’t have some of the books I want in stock.
Bookshop
I haven’t used this new alternative to Amazon, but it sounds like it might be the best rival yet, especially as a resource for those independent bookstores that just don’t have the time or expertise to run their own online operation. Bookshop.org handles all the logistics and technology for them. The website is pretty and simple to use. A portion of all profits go to the independent store of your choice or to a general earnings pool that will be evenly distributed amongst independent bookstores – even those that don’t use Bookshop.
Happy Shopping!