America Now Has 70% More Bookstores Than in 2020, Says Bookshop.org Founder (fastcompany.com) 56
"There are about 70% more bookstores now than there were six years ago in the United States," says Andy Hunter, the founder/CEO of Bookshop.org.
Fast Company checks in on his site, which gives over 80% of its profit margin to independent bookstores, structuring itself as a B Corporation (a for-profit company certified for its social-impact) while providing an alternative to Amazon and other online booksellers:
Hunter created Bookshop.org in January 2020 to help independent bookstores survive by utilizing e-commerce... "There were over 5,000 bookstores in the American Booksellers Association in 1995, which is one year after Amazon launched. By 2019, that had gone down to 1,889, so more than half of them disappeared." He says he never could have predicted how the pandemic would accelerate his company's growth... "All these stores that had been trying to get around e-commerce or never really launching or building their website, they had to sell online. That was the only way they could survive during the pandemic...."
"Our goal is to help independent local bookstores get their fair share of online sales, which would end up being maybe 10% of Amazon's market share," he says. "And right now we're at about 2%, so we have a long way to go. But a lot of people didn't even think we could ever get 1%...." Bookshop.org has given almost $47 million back to local bookstores. For Hunter, it's not just about the money but changing the way society thinks. He's delighted that many big organizations no longer use Amazon affiliate links, choosing to send people his way instead. "People have absorbed the message that they should support independent bookstores when they buy books," he says.
"Our goal is to help independent local bookstores get their fair share of online sales, which would end up being maybe 10% of Amazon's market share," he says. "And right now we're at about 2%, so we have a long way to go. But a lot of people didn't even think we could ever get 1%...." Bookshop.org has given almost $47 million back to local bookstores. For Hunter, it's not just about the money but changing the way society thinks. He's delighted that many big organizations no longer use Amazon affiliate links, choosing to send people his way instead. "People have absorbed the message that they should support independent bookstores when they buy books," he says.
OSS model for physical stores (Score:2, Interesting)
This is clever and good. It sets up real competition against mega corporations like Amazon. More of this please.
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Meanwhile in reality per-pupil spending in the US is some of the highest in the entire world and it's far left policies like abolishing phonics and claiming expecting the right answer in math is "white supremacy" that lead to this, because a neurotic and ignorant population is easier to radicalize.
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"Far left policies"?
ROTFLMAO!!!
You wouldn't know actual far left - like free education through at least 2 years of college - if it bit you.
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Even that is nowhere near far left. Far left is workers owning the means of production and so on.
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There is a fight over phonics in education [the74million.org], but I don't know which party supports it and which party opposes it.
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They have underfunded public education since the raygun
America spends more per pupil than any other country except Norway and Luxembourg.
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They have underfunded public education since the raygun
America spends more per pupil than any other country except Norway and Luxembourg.
We put a man on the moon, then Jimmy Carter created the federal department of education, and nationwide standardized test scores have been in decline ever since, while per-pupil spend has gone up faster than inflation.
A few years ago Baltimore had 13 high schools that had NO students reading or doing math at grade level, yet, each year those 13 high school's graduating classes had "Valedictorians" who could not read or do math at grade level.
Let that sink in.
Baltimore is not a Republican-controlled city, Ba
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We put a man on the moon, then Jimmy Carter created the federal department of education, and nationwide standardized test scores have been in decline ever since, while per-pupil spend has gone up faster than inflation.
NAEP scores have been dropping since 1970 and SAT from before 1970, i.e., before Carter.
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They have underfunded public education since the raygun era... It's also why they've defunded PBS and other education-related resources
Come on. US educational spending is VERY high on both an absolute and per capita basis, as has already been pointed out to you, and US education has been in decline since at least the 1960s. Arch-conservative (/s) Richard Feynman wrote in his autobiography [rangevoting.org] about how shit our textbooks were when he was on the Arch-conservative (/s) California commission to help choose them. FWIW, I recommend reading this bit regardless of your political persuasion. I do have one quibble with it (personally, I think being a
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dismantle and replace with what?
with the exception of Canada, every other country in the G20 has federal control or oversight of education.
Re: Cause and Effect. (Score:2)
Thatâ(TM)s not true. The UK is a G20 country and doesnâ(TM)t have a federal system, let alone a federal government. The UK governmentâ(TM)s Department for Education is only responsible for England; the governments of the other UK nations are responsible for their own education.
Re: But yet... (Score:2)
Johnny likes pussy and cars more than reading.
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I wish more people cared about device lock-in and DRM encumberance of e-books. Sites like ebooks.com present lots of DRM free options with an easy way to filter by that (unlike Amazon and Google).
But, even totally locked-in e-readers with planned obsolesce and eventual excommunication from the garden (while still perfectly functional) are convenient enough that people put up with it. Sadly.
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This is clever and good. It sets up real competition against mega corporations like Amazon. More of this please.
What?
As best as I can deduce, what they do is compete, directly, with Amazon as a single, large, online book store shipping books they stock to customers that visit their site. Customer's can choose to "identify" a local book store they want to "sponsor" (my word), and the large vendor "bookshop.org" will literally give the local bookstore money as a "commission" (again, my word) on book sales they local book store was never involved in. If a customer doesn't pick a local bookstore to "sponsor", a share of
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It seems like bookstore.org is doing more beneficial things for small bookstores than might be apparent. They allow small bookstores to benefit from online orders without incurring the significant costs of buying or setting up the ordering, inventory, or fulfillment systems. The small bookstores do send some traffic to bookstore.org via both direct orders and referrals from their own websites. The bookstore gets 30% of the cover price for orders and referrals and 10% from the general fund otherwise.
Altho
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This is clever and good. It sets up real competition against mega corporations like Amazon. More of this please.
This would be like Walmart opening a supercenter in a town and deciding to pay a "commission" on every grocery sale to the previously-existing grocery store in town on every grocery sale, and a commission to the local clothing stores for every item of clothing sold in the Walmart clothing section, etc...
It doesn't bring new business/customers to local book stores, it is an Amazon competitor that is paying "indulgences" to local book stores as it does *exactly* what Amazon does and takes away sales from loca
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"It doesn't bring new business/customers to local book stores"
so where did the 70% new bookstores come from if their sales are being stolen by both Amazon & Bookshop?
So now you have (Score:2)
at least 17.
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Exactly! First time the IRS does a check, they're done.
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Somehow Barnes and Noble and BAM (Books a Million, what's left of Borders) are still around in the US.
They're probably making more money selling overpriced coffee and toys than books, though.
Speaking of Amazon and books... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone else just not trust Amazon anymore for, ironically, books?
The place went from a great bargain book seller to a place that sells horrible reprints.
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Too bad so many have hurt feelings about doing the right thing. Typical Slashdot.
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Amazon used to have fairly-priced used books, but since the price of those have went through the roof in the past 5 years, eBay now seem much more reasonable.
But even for used books, you're right. I've bought $50 new books from Amazon and they don't remember how to package them properly, they're just loose in a huge box and end up with damaged corners.
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I never buy books post 2022 any more. The only exception is if I know the author. New authors? Sorry, you can blame the tech bros.
I do however still buy a lot of older books. I've seen the near future, and the information pollution is going to get worse before
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"Amazon books since 2023 are often AI generated slop"
some of the big pi..."privateer" sites have begun to reject new ebooks that have only an ASIN
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Amazon used to have fairly-priced used books, but since the price of those have went through the roof in the past 5 years, eBay now seem much more reasonable.
Amazon doesn't sell used books - Amazon hosts used book sellers on it's platform, and the sellers set the prices. Your beef is with the sellers, not Amazon. Now, maybe Amazon is over-charging for the referral/processing/shipping services the used book sellers rely on, and that drives up prices, but thats a choice the used books sellers make...
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No, my beef is entirely with Amazon. In the past 10-15 years, they have purchased almost all of the competing online used book sellers--for example, The Book Depository and AbeBooks, to name a couple which I used in the past--in order to drive traffic to their marketplace. They may not be the sellers, but they control the market with an iron hand. This has had the effect of drastically increasing prices.
Re:Speaking of Amazon and books... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm finding that a lot of printed books today are horribly edited. It use to be rare I would find a misprint in a book.
I'm finding that a lot of printed books today are horribly edited. It use to be rare I would find a misprint in a book.
A lot of new fiction today is essentially self-published. In some ways, this is great. It's easier for new authors to get their books in print, rather than dealing with endless rejection letters, and those that are successful keep more of their money. On the other hand, it means that readers can no longer rely on publishers to act as quality filters. This shows up both in an increase in slop (AI and otherwise) on the market and in a significant reduction in professional editing. Often there is no professional editing at all.
I find that this is (one of many) good reasons to consume fiction primarily in audio form. The cost and complexity of getting a talented voice actor to read your books serves as a quality filter, and the narrators generally fix the most severe editing problems. They won't do structural editing, of course (e.g. deleting useless paragraphs), but typos are naturally not relevant and they also often fix erroneous word choices, incorrect names, etc., when it's obvious what the text should say. For example, I enjoy Terry Mancour's "Spellmonger" series quite a bit, but I absolutely cannot stand reading it in print. So many annoying mistakes that even a light editing pass would fix. But John Lee, the narrator Terry uses, does an outstanding job of cleaning all that up as well as of bringing the characters and the stories to life. There are several other recent book series like this, which I find unreadable in print but quite enjoyable in audio form.
Of course audiobooks also have their downsides. They cost more, sometimes narrators are lousy -- even to the point of making a good book unlistenable -- plus they have their own annoying "editorial" problems, such as different narrators reading stories in the same world using different pronunciations of names and concepts. Drawing on the Mancour example, his world had a time when it was ruled by mages, a time that is called "The Magocracy". Logically, this should be pronounced with a soft "g", as in "mage", and John Lee does this. But some side novels are narrated by Fiona Hardingham, who insists on saying it with a hard "g", as well as pronouncing a lot of names differently. Minor, but grating.
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"Of course audiobooks also have their downsides."
It's rapidly approaching trivial to have the audiobook created by an llm narrator. Whether it will be worth listening to such a book is a separate question.
On the one hand it makes a lot more books accessible for the blind, which is a godsend... even a bad narration by an ai is potentially much better than simply not being able to consume the book.
But on the other, its going to make finding a good audiobook read by a narrator worth actually listening to much
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Statistics are fun (Score:5, Interesting)
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A full rebound is unlikely, but I think it's a fair notice that book stores made a resurgence.
It's happened in a few industries, something is somewhat popular, businesses oversaturate the market, the business results cause them to conclude that the business is 'done', and the last remaining few get overwhelmed by demand.
So there's a bit of a back and forth to find the right equilibrium, particularly after a disruption.
Great news for all authors and publishers (Score:2)
With independents and the Big 4 there's plenty to read. And there's nothing like walking into a physical book store. It's a needed thrid space, in a way.
E-Commerce or Brick and Mortar stores? (Score:3)
The article seems to read that more independent shops are selling online. You only need an inventory and a couple of people (or robots) to fill e-commerce orders.
I'd rather see it be a 70% increase in real brick and mortar stores with corresponding staff. I miss the days of Borders Bookstores and the local bookstore like we had in my old hometown. Barnes and Noble doesn't even come close to Borders back in the day.
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This story has NOTHING to do with local stores selling more books, this is an online competitor that lists, stocks, processes, and ships books from their own facility, but allows customers to identify a local book store they might have bought the book from, which will get a small "commission" (my word) for a book sale the local book store was never a part of.
Amazon offers "Affiliate Marketing" where users can suggest and link to an Amazon product and get a small commission for every click-thru that results
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The article seems to read that more independent shops are selling online. You only need an inventory and a couple of people (or robots) to fill e-commerce orders.
True, but can an online only store survive? I know several local specialty crafts ( needlepoint) stores that sell online but that alone would not enough to cover inventory and other costs. A lot of sales occur in store, and that helps turnover as well as sell threads with a canvas. Turns for online only would be a lot slower. Granted, it’s different than books but I suspect the economics are similar.
I'd rather see it be a 70% increase in real brick and mortar stores with corresponding staff. I miss the days of Borders Bookstores and the local bookstore like we had in my old hometown. Barnes and Noble doesn't even come close to Borders back in the day.
I agree. Part of the value is wandering the stacks and seeing books you might like but never heard
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I miss the days of Borders Bookstores and the local bookstore like we had in my old hometown. Barnes and Noble doesn't even come close to Borders back in the day.
Really? I liked Borders, but as far as I could tell, Barns and Noble and Borders were basically clones of each other.
It's batteries (Score:2)
no utility (Score:2)
I stopped going to bookstores when the fantasy and self-help and religion sections got bigger than anything else. Simply nothing there for me, except whatever the NYT had recently ordained.
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Assuming the small business is local, it generally also circulates money through the local economy instead of siphoning it all away, which provides jobs in your local community, and ensures a healthier local tax base from businesses. The increased foot traffic tends to bring halo benefits to nearby eateries and so forth. It results in more and better job prospects for your kids than "amazon delivery driver" too.
These all combine to make the community you live in more economically vibrant, with things to do
So a tiny # compared to pre Borders+BN? (Score:2)
It's similar to when Walmart comes to down, annihilates independent local businesses, and leaves leaving a food desert t
Try and take by books off me.. (Score:2)
I have about 2000 physical books, lots of older books I bought 2nd hand, but lots I bought new.
AND when I want to, I can sell them to someone else
You can stick with your book rental, I don't care, but I will always prefer paper.