As of this morning, you can now easily buy ebooks from your local indie bookstore. Thanks to Bookshop.org, the reigning David to Am*zon’s Goliath.
As Wired reports, a new platform on the site will now sell ebooks directly to customers. Bookshop users can buy and read titles via a handy-dandy interface, or an iOs and Android-friendly app.
Customers can also browse all of the 35 million(!) digital titles before choosing which bookstore to support with their purchase.
Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter—who is, full disclosure, the publisher and co-founder of This Very Website—notes that there are still some hurdles ahead.
Thanks to Amazon’s proprietary licensing system, transferring some Bookshop-bought titles across devices could prove tricky. And given that Kindle is the most popular e-reader in the world, readers with vast existing digital libraries may be disincentivized to switch vendors.
But for the intrepid—i.e., you Kobo kings—the new model should come as a breath of fresh air in a stifled marketplace. Now you have choices!
And it doesn’t hurt that when you buy an ebook via Bookshop, 100% of that book’s profits go straight to the indie of your choice. As opposed to, you know. Some vault on a third tier Bezos island.
Since its 2020 launch, Bookshop has raised over $35 million for indie bookstores. And their ebook library will surely grow that figure. If you’re part of the rising tide of digital readers, today I bid you—rejoice. Eat goose. And curl up with a nice, light book.
