I’ve been sharing #spellbooksaturday reading recommendations since 2019, and a Goodreads user for about the same amount of time. Mega-retailer Amazon is toxic for so many reasons, but the one on which I’d like to focus today is how it has negatively impacted independent bookstores. Making up more than 50% of book sales, Amazon heavily discounts books, often selling them below retail price. This creates an uneven playing field because indies can’t match those prices without losing money. It has avoided equitable taxation and uses exploitative labor practices, all while undermining the local culture that indie bookstores offer their communities (you’ll never see Jeff Bezos leading a book club!).
Unfortunately, Amazon owns Goodreads. While not your local brick-and-mortar indie book seller, Bookshop.org is certainly better than Amazon for several key reasons, most importantly that it shares profits with local independent bookstores. When you buy from the site, you can choose a specific store to support, or let the profit go into a shared pool distributed among indie shops. Also, Bookshop.org is a B Corporation, meaning it meets rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
With all that in mind, I’ll be divesting from Goodreads.1 While I look for an alternative I like, I will be recommending books via Bookshop.org, and have added a list of past #spellbooksaturday features for folks to peruse.
In the spirit of full transparency: as a Bookshop.org affiliate, I will receive a small percentage of book sales purchased through my links. (If you find that off-putting, feel free to shop directly through Bookshop.org or your own local retailer! My only goal here is to fight the mega-rich.)
Do you have a favorite indie bookstore? Share and tag them in the comments, I’d love to check them out!
DID YOU ENJOY THIS SPELLBOOK SATURDAY FEATURE? SHOP THE LIST ON BOOKSHOP.ORG, OR CHECK OUT SOME MORE READING RECOMMENDATIONS…
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- I have to admit, I did appreciate their social element— seeing friends’ TBR lists is always interesting! ↩︎
