Bookshop.org launches Kindle alternative, sends e-book sales to local bookstores
usatoday.com
usatoday.com
One way we can boost Bookshop.org is anytime we cite a book to use their URL instead of Amazon's URL. So here's "Nineteen Eighty Four" https://bookshop.org/p/books/nineteen-eighty-four-george-orw...
Yes they should add a filter for DRM-free, or allow setting it as your default.
From TheVerge article: *"The app... has a unique social feature: “We’ll allow anybody to share any quote from any ebook to social media, and then people who are on social can click through, buy the ebook, and start reading it on their phone immediately.”"
Suggest you should drop your comment on that article, it's potentially misleading.
I quoted from a second article (can't find the link now) which actually states the commissions. (So if a bookstore make a sales from a link that came in via an affiliate, does the affiliate get 10% plus the bookstore gets 30%?)
It also doesn’t mention whether they take UnionPay or how easy it is to park outside their office, so yeah, if it’s trying to be a compendium of human knowledge related to the website Bookshop.org, I guess it is pretty incomplete. Possible that it isn’t, though.
Affiliate links are to Bookshop’s main site, not one of their cobranded bookstore storefronts. When you buy from the main site, the affiliate who linked you there gets 10% and bookstores and Bookshop split the rest, as they always do. When you buy from a bookstore storefront, the store gets 30% directly. As far as I can tell, there are no affiliate links to bookstore storefronts, so your question isn’t applicable.
> Affiliate links are to Bookshop’s main site, not one of their cobranded bookstore storefronts... As far as I can tell, there are no affiliate links to bookstore storefronts, so your question isn’t applicable.
So, seems to mean the app's supposed big feature promoted above allowing "sharing any quote to SM as an affiliate link" cannot go to a cobranded indie bookstore? Then I can't see the indie bookstores themselves wanting to use it much.
As I say this last week's news was the main indie bookstore chain in the SF Bay Area with 11 locations filed for bankruptcy and closed its Berkeley location, but the other 10 remain open. [https://booksinc.net/our-statement-regarding-filing-voluntar...]
Anyway I hope they do well but they have a battle to fight.
what are "affiliates" in this case? there aren't any bookstore chains in the US other than B&N and Amazon of course
(similar to "Amazon affiliate link")
For example, I run Shepherd.com, and I try to help readers find books they don't know about in fun ways while helping new authors get their first readers.
Or book websites that try to create questions for book clubs to use when discussing books.
Fun fact: The real affiliate rate is only half what they publish, as the sales get scrubbed due to the chaotic nature of cookies/affiliate tracking. So Amazon pays around 2% for book sales, and bookshop.org pays 5% (if not less at Amazon since they only compensate you if the sale happens in the first 24 hours). This is why it is impossible for any book websites to fund themselves without direct funding from readers/authors at this point.
We are working now on a massive upgrade for the bookshelves so we can better highlight the best books of all-time (plus by decade so you can dig into 1950s or 1990s sci-fi etc), new books, trending books, and some other cool stuff!
In UK and EU book is already in public domain.
"On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century", Timothy Snyder https://bookshop.org/p/books/on-tyranny-twenty-lessons-from-...
Or what's your chosen link?
There have been various efforts in the past to avoid citing Amazon that way. I thought it was a good idea, but I ran into an odd problem - publishers tend not to have pages for their books at all.
I'd rather cite books with a worldcat link.
Hopefully they improve the filters with time and it's not an intentional decision to appease publishers.
I recently discovered and have been enjoying libro.fm for audio books. Can anyone here recommend a good source of DRM-free e-books?
Now I can use whatever app suits me, and I can buy my ebooks from whatever store has the best deal. Sometimes I'll find Kobo is cheaper than Kindle, for example.
Often I read older fiction that's out of copyright, I use the Moon+ Reader app on the Boox and it's as good as the Kindle except free.
- an e-reader implementation/support on an e-ink device --- looks like the Android app on a Boox or something similar would cover that
- regular sales --- the $1.99 offerings which Amazon and most other e-book vendors offer have thus far pretty much kept abreast or ahead of my reading inclinations (even filtering for where they intersect with my interests)
- a robust organization/filtering where _all_ versions of a given text show up under a single listing/page (there are a couple of books where I have multiple copies because it was re-published with a new foreword and the old listing vanished and there was _no_ indication that I already owned it --- similarly, this should include _all_ public domain work, and including the entirety of Project Gutenberg (preferably not for free, but for some nominal amount which is then donated to that project) would make usage a _lot_ easier
- a way to buy gift cards using Microsoft Rewards points (or cash) --- remember the sales I mentioned, I never spend more than discretionary money on e-books
- a mechanism for reporting typos/conversion errors which actually works --- the first e-book I "bought", Robert Heinlein's _Space Cadet_ was so rife with errors that it was unreadable --- I actually had to check a copy out from a local library so as to be able to write up a list of all the typos --- even now, I still find typos in books (_Dune_, which I didn't buy/re-read on my Kindle still had typos in it ("pogrom" rendered as "program", a formatting error for one of the _s_ glossary entries, a couple of others) despite having had millions of downloads before I got around to reading it.
I would also like to have an ebook format where more effort is given to annotation/decoration, and where that would re-flow based on screen size (cue the discussion I tried to have with my boss where I wanted to make an e-book app and matching format back when the iPhone first launched...)
This is so close to perfect. Right now to read these I’d need to get an ereader that runs full Android (BOOX, etc) which isn’t what I want. But they say they’re working on a partnership with Kobo, so I’ll wait for that and then finally ditch my Kindle.
I've always loved that Humble Bundle books are usually either Kobo licenses or drm-free formats that can be side loaded.
Instead I sent my 400 books over the air to my Kindle (you can do this in bulk) then connected the Kindle over USB and had Calibre pull the books off for me. Much easier
From their FAQ page - https://bookshop.org/info/ebooks
> Do l own the ebooks I purchase outright?
> The publishers of our ebooks require that the ebooks you “purchase” from Bookshop.org are only licensed to you. Even DRM-free books are subject to some restrictions and may not be owned outright. However, even in the case of an ebook being removed from Bookshop.org by the publisher, users who purchased the ebook previously will continue to have access to the ebook file. Depending on the circumstances, in the unlikely event an ebook is removed from your library because of a rights issue or otherwise, Bookshop.org will refund the purchase price you paid.
As far as recommendations, my local bookstores are often staffed by people that don’t have much in common with my interests. Much easier to find relevant book recommendations online.
Either you care about that and this appeals to you, or it doesn't. They seem to have found a niche and are doing alright.
If online sales is what it takes to make some money and to keep themselves in the news, so be it.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/bookstores-resurge...
https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/lessons-for-re...
Then you haven't found the right bookstore. Many, if not most, independent bookstores specialize in particular areas. In those cases, the staff's knowledge of a product can be invaluable. Certainly better than online recommendations since you can talk to them about what you are looking for, rather than accepting random reviews or machine generated recommendations at face value. If they don't specialize in a particular topic, then any recommendation they can provide is not going to be any better than what you will get from a major retailer or website.
actually local bookstores are making somewhat of a comeback as people understand their value (there have been multiple articles on this though I can't find them right now)
I was an early adopter of Kindle and used to buy digital books from Amazon (or get them from IRC, mostly out of print technical books), and used Apple Books too. But for the past 5 years or so, I only buy books from my local bookstore (preferably used, but sometimes new), except that I do sometimes buy used books from ThriftBooks.com. I found that I much prefer reading a physical book, and it feels good to be supporting the local economy in some small way rather than giving more money to Bezos and Co. After all, I benefit from a stronger local economy whereas I don't benefit from Amazon becoming ever larger.
My long-standing question is why the holy hell is there no dupe checker? It's not that I care about some rando having their submission get 1600 points 3 hours after an identical one. It's often the problem of a medium-level discussion happening on a submission, then the later submission really catches fire and the first audience has no idea unless the second happens to make the front page. The second audience rehashes the talking points already covered by the first audience, and only dang can do an update to merge them together if someone cares enough to email them. So much manual curation for a site about using technology to solve problems
Don't get me wrong. If they were up there saying they were doing it for publishers or authors, I may find some integrity in their claim. After all, they are the ones hurting from Amazon's dominance, they are the ones who would benefit by bringing their products to consumers via other channels, and they are the ones bringing something to the table.
But independent bookstores? Don't get me wrong, I want to see them thrive. Yet it doesn't look like they are bringing much to the table here. Once you get past the landing page with books they (likely) curated for their intended market, there isn't much of a reason for them to exist in this particular marketplace. It doesn't much look like Bookshop.org facilitates them offering much unique to the particular bookstore's customers. For things like store events or community news or even a unique presentation of the store's products one would have to follow the links to the bookstore's social media pages or website.
While independent bookstores may benefit from an increased online presence in the short term, I'm left asking the question: what is preventing Bookshop.org from capturing their customers, decreasing commissions, and even blocking those links to the store's actual independent online presence in the medium to long term?
Maybe Bookshop.org's intent is genuine. The problem is that I've seen similar games being played out too many times before.
> While independent bookstores may benefit from an increased online presence in the short term, I'm left asking the question: what is preventing Bookshop.org from capturing their customers, decreasing commissions, and even blocking those links to the store's actual independent online presence in the medium to long term?
trust. it was started by somebody whose career demonstrated they are committed to supporting indies and literature. if you've been around booksellers, then you know how important this trust is. the booksellers are also very loud and opinionated so the company will know if they are making wrong decisions. the stores feel like they have somewhat of an ownership to bookshop (though not legally).
you might say, "well trust can be broken" and you're right but we're talking about a niche industry with a limited market size, and no potential for world domination/incentive to break the trust. i know it's crazy but some folks still do business like that. the platform's success depends on the relationship with the booksellers, so what happens when they break that trust?
before this, indies didn't have much helping them online except custom ecommerce stores that some stores can't afford and are generally not good software imo. bookshop.org is hardly competing with amazon here. there is no huge market capture they're after. they're just trying to help bookstores stay alive and compete.
source, i made ecommerce software for independent bookstores: https://bookhead.net
(edits for pre-coffee typos)
Hopefully, they are headed to audio books next.
The local bookstore doesn’t add anything to this process.
But if bookshop.org doesn’t support the local bookstore then bookshop.org doesn’t have any value to the reader either. They’d might as well go to Amazon at that point.
So they have a track record.
But more importantly for the cynic, their CEO has publicly answered this question as well.
Basically, if they’re not sending money to local bookstores, there’s no reason for them to exist. There’s no reason for anyone to buy a book from them instead of Amazon if they stop fulfilling their purpose of supporting local bookstores.
It is sooo annoying to NOT be able to find any books online except for AMZ or the companies they bought up goodread.
Except, many of the books I want to read are self-published by small authors, and are only available on Amazon, probably because of how easy it is to self-publish there.
I hope they can fix that, because it's my current biggest complaint about owning a Kobo reader.
The idea that Amazon is essential to self-published ebooks is blatantly false, and is encouraged by Amazon to lock authors into the Kindle ecosystem.
1. Calibre can do the job for the case of mostly-text PDFs, while keeping images too of course. I haven't done this, but a quick search reveals that it can give inconsistent results (mostly depending on the source PDF of course).
2. If the "text" of the PDF is actually just an image, consider OCR instead, or treat it as a digital comic as I'll cover next:
3. For digital comics, a different program called CBConvert is what you want. I actually don't think ePubs are the best format for comics, and usually convert to CBZ format instead; CBConvert has this all covered.
I have that issue too. A lot of the books I read are on Kindle Unlimited, which requires exclusivity.
But like the software “Quality, Cost, Delivery” triangle, the delivery is 99% by USPS media mail, so it’s 5-7 business days to get the book.
It would be interesting to see Bookshop to hookup with Bookfinder to give them another search method.
Can I transfer the books to a device of my choice *, or are they DRM encumbered and always online?
* we read on a Kindle and an iPad in my house. For as long as the Kindle supports local uploading of books via Calibre, at least.
Eh it's very possible for DRM free ebooks with Calibre.
For DRM encumbered I don't know but I assume it's significantly more complex indeed.
Also, the epub conversion worked for years before Amazon officially supported it! You just had to rename the .epub to .png and then it would convert it. Very weird, they probably had some kind of block on .epub .
Tbh the Calibre step doesn't mean much to me, since I can plug in the Kindle, stuff it with a few books and leave it there charging. Then when I feel like reading I have the books ready and full battery.
But yeah I'm looking to move to another ecosystem too. I'm not a big fan of calibre though, it's such a messy application. Very bad UX, so 2010s. I use it when I need it (conversion) but I wouldn't use it as my book library.
I'm looking for a new ereader ecosystem though. Ideally something where I can run the sync server myself. And readers with page turn buttons. I'm not really convinced of Kobo now that they only sell the colour Libra which has really poor contrast (so you always need the backlight). I really regret not buying a Libra 2 when they were still around.
I absolutely want the light because I read in bed a lot and I don't need a lamp on that way.
I don't care about any fancy functions besides reading epub. To be honest, I don't think I want any fancy functions. I only use the ereaders for reading fiction, if I'm going through a technical pdf I use a computer and either a separate text editor or paper for notes.
Built in stores don't count either, I'm not above going to guaranteed DRM free sources.
What's left then at the Kindle price range?
This is an area where regulators should step in. DRM should either be banned on books (do we really want to lock up knowledge) or it should be standardized so that you can read any book on any device, like how you could play just about any DVD on any player. The current system gives Amazon too much power.
Or were you not talking about DRM-encumbered books? I didn’t really consider those because very few are available commercially. Books from the publisher Tor is one notable example, but there aren’t many others.
Interesting story though. First they were on the Kindle store, and I was a subscriber by convenience.
Then when Amazon stopped handling individual subscriptions they moved to some solution similar to this one, requiring an app - which I ignored.
Later they finally switched to letting you download drm-free epubs from their site. Suddenly I'm a subscriber again :)
Apple Books is pretty much impenetrable.
Amazon books are a mixed bag. I have a bunch where I haven’t been able to remove the DRM.
Google Books and Kobo Books are probably the least secure today, but I suspect that isn’t going to last.
I’ll be honest, though, I was surprised to learn that Alibris isn’t an Amazon subsidiary.
> Sorry, you have been blocked
> You are unable to access bookshop.org
> You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.
I guess a geo block? Wow! Either way I think I’ll pass.
> Do l own the ebooks I purchase outright?
> The publishers of our ebooks require that the ebooks you “purchase” from Bookshop.org are only licensed to you. Even DRM-free books are subject to some restrictions and may not be owned outright. However, even in the case of an ebook being removed from Bookshop.org by the publisher, users who purchased the ebook previously will continue to have access to the ebook file. Depending on the circumstances, in the unlikely event an ebook is removed from your library because of a rights issue or otherwise, Bookshop.org will refund the purchase price you paid.