The site is not that great, and there are a lot of what look like shoddy print-on-demand books that Amazon also sells. Not exactly your indie-bookstore mix.
Thanks to Bookshop, indies stand a chance against Amazon
81–87 of 87 posts
Re: Thanks to Bookshop, indies stand a chance against Amazon
#82[deleted]
Re: Thanks to Bookshop, indies stand a chance against Amazon
#83What studies discuss how money flows internally and permanently out of an economy? This seems tangential here. I recall an article/conversation long ago about how open source consulting projects keep money local. IIRC, the argument was that paying someone to develop open source software for a government project leads to that money being cycled around six times inside the local economy, as opposed to money leaving the…
Don't have a link to a study, but would also appreciate a good one of anyone is into this. From my understanding of economics, the idea is that, optimizing for local money is suboptimal. Compare that to Smalltown finding their own niches/specialization and earning more money from that to purchase Oracle software. Smalltowns will end up having more value by exporting what they are good at, and importing what they need…
I appreciate that idea. But, the example I cited should at least warrant further discussion. If you know anything about the way Oracle does business (and this is the case for many other businesses in other industries) is that they sell you on a project with a small initial cost. Then, BIG SURPRISE! Cost overruns! Can't be helped, but here is the bill. Hence the lawsuit. If you look at this example, I really feel like a local solutions consultant (my magical Perl programmer) could have done it for less money and a better outcome. And, I really think that is a model we should consider much more often.
Re: Thanks to Bookshop, indies stand a chance against Amazon
#84> Thanks to Bookshop, There Is No Reason* to Buy Books on Amazon Anymore
*other than (but not limited to) the following: larger inventory, lower prices, faster/cheaper shipping, kindle, prime video, amazon smile, etc.
Re: Thanks to Bookshop, indies stand a chance against Amazon
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I moved to Germany about two years ago from the US. I have used Amazon a lot to help me get settled here. I’d like to move away from them but English books seem like the hardest thing to find off their platform. Do you know of an alternative?
Use amazon search/reviews and then use the ISBN to shop anywhere (I would promote Buch7 as a social book shop knowing its not the best for English books). Your local book shopde will also order most things for you. (Call them, they call you back when the book arrived). The big problem is that English books are not fixed price in Germany ...
Ahh ok, this is helpful. Thanks!
Re: Thanks to Bookshop, indies stand a chance against Amazon
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I see the point either. I want to shop at my local bookstore. The one that is a 10 minute walk from my place. Bookshop seems like an amazon clone but they donate to independent bookstores. Well, amazon has smile, so I don't see how this is better. Perhaps I missed something.
When you allow a company like Amazon to control that much of the publishing business, you end up with some real problems. Among them, these are some very important ones: * Amazon can dictate with their recommendation engine and promoted shelf what books you'll read. They can bury authors and whole topics and since they control so much of the market, these other books don't get a fighting chance to actually be seen, l…
Really good points!
I definitely support the indie bookstores, and have been exclusively using them around my area for quite some time (only wish I was doing this sooner, how dumb was I before to be using amazon so much). They may not typically have books that I am interested in, technical books, but I do use the web to find those and all the stores support ordering books online that I then can pick up in the store. Though the price is typically more than amazon's, but it's worth it to me.
I do enjoy the curation that they have at the shops, and it is great to find a book that I probably would have not have found otherwise.
I also would like to support small businesses over larger corporations, because to your last paragraph, I also think it's important of part of that supply chain to reap the benefits of their labor (the store owner) and have more creativity and autonomy over what they do.
So, I wouldn't want to support Bookshop (and especially amazon when it comes to books), and would rather just support my local bookstore which can do everything that Bookshop or amazon can do. Not sure why we would want a middle layer that takes most of the money and then gives money out to stores like charity.
Re: Thanks to Bookshop, indies stand a chance against Amazon
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The indiebound site now directs people to bookshop.org for purchases. Previously, it would direct you to an individual bookseller's website which may or may not have had online ordering available. Update: The changeover to bookstore.org has been postponed to June 1st to direct as much traffic to individual bookstores' websites as possible.
I can see why they went this way, but this change does seem to be in one sense admitting defeat vs. the Amazon model. The new Bookshop model is basically the Amazon model as far as sales and fulfillment goes: centralized online ordering, with centralized fulfillment from warehouses directly to consumers, bypassing retail. The main difference from Amazon is that they hope to sell at higher prices, producing a surplus…
Sounds like it is a lot more like what AbeBooks used to be then. (Before Amazon bought and gutted AbeBooks.)