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God, I wish Bookshop.org would open business for Sweden—where I live—today. I wish it'd open its doors for the world today.
It is being described as a “revolutionary moment in the history of bookselling”: a socially conscious alternative to Amazon that allows readers to buy books online while supporting their local independent bookseller. And after a hugely successful launch in the US, it is open in the UK from today.
What are they on about, then? From their about page:
Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission 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 more and more people buy their books online, 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).
We also support anyone who advocates for books through our affiliate program, which pays a 10% commission on every sale, and gives a matching 10% to independent bookstores. If you are an author, a website or magazine, have a bookclub, an organization that wants to recommend books, or even just a book-lover with an Instagram feed, you can sign up to be an affiliate, start your own shop, and be rewarded for your advocacy of books. Bookshop wants to give back to everyone who promotes books, authors, and independent bookstores!
By design, we give away over 75% of our profit margin to stores, publications, authors and others who make up the thriving, inspirational culture around books!
We hope that Bookshop can help strengthen the fragile ecosystem and margins around bookselling and keep local bookstores an integral part of our culture and communities.
Bookshop is a B-Corp - a corporation dedicated to the public good.
https://bookshop.org/pages/about, visited on 2020-11-03.
In other words, they work for the betterment of people.
Amazon, who sell everything from antisemitic propaganda to racist technology to police, and ICE concentration camps, don't give a toss; they make money for Jeff Bezos—famous for saying he doesn't know what to do with his money while employees starve—and that's their sole mission.
By the way, Bookshop remove hateful literature because it's hateful, not because a media frenzy points out that supporting Hitler is bad.
Bookshop.org takes a small percentage for connecting readers with independently-run bookshops, which is something that benefits all of humanity. It's good. And it's going well:
Initially starting with 250 bookshops, more than 900 stores have now signed up in the US. “We went from selling $50,000 (£38,000) worth of books in all of February, to selling $50,000 a day in March, then $150,000 a day in April,” said Hunter. By June, Bookshop sold $1m worth of books in a day. The platform has now raised more than $7.5m (£5.7m) for independent bookshops across the US.
Philip Gwyn Jones, publisher at Picador, described Bookshop as “a positively revolutionary moment in the history of bookselling in the UK, and in the evolution of the relationship between writers and readers”.
“It’s hard for us to compete with someone that’s got its own warehouse and sells books sometimes at a loss, or at very small profit margins. We just can’t do that. So it’s nice that Bookshop.org is going to rival Amazon in a way we couldn’t on our own or even collectively,” said Georgia Eckert, of Imagined Things bookshop in Harrogate. “You’ve got to have the reach, a site that’s big enough, run by a proper team of people dedicated to it. We’re all running our own businesses and haven’t got time to be doing that.”
Fingers crossed that they make it everywhere and soon.