Hacker News Reader

Comment by bwb | Hacker News Reader

They pay affiliates 10%, it is only indie bookstores who get 30%.

Ok. I misrecollected the articles by TheVerge + others said: "Bookshop’s deal is the same for ebooks and physical books — the store gets 30 percent of the list price." (and doesn't mention affiliates but other articles do)

Suggest you should drop your comment on that article, it's potentially misleading.

https://www.theverge.com/tech/597137/bookshop-org-ebooks

No worries, mainstream media goes fast, and they rarely fix errors (they might have even had AI write most of this to get the clicks).

The Verge story was entirely accurate - GP misread it. And The Verge isn’t AI slop.

The Verge article was incomplete and misleading because it says nothing about affiliates (doesn't even mention the word) and says the bookstore always gets all the profit from any referral. And in fact it says "The Bookshop model is a simple one: when you use the website, you pick a store you’d like to support, and when you buy a book that store gets all the profit... For bookstores, the deal is exactly the same: you choose your store, the store can share recommendations and lists, and it gets the money every time you buy something. " Even if the link you followed came from a social media affiliate, not directly from the bookshop? Very unclear.

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%?)

> The Verge article was incomplete and misleading because it says nothing about affiliates (doesn't even mention the word) and says the bookstore always gets all the profit from any referral.

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.

Don't be abrasive. It neglects mentioning the commission structure which other recent articles do mention, and actually is important - Amazon is currently pushing affiliate commission on e-books a lot, YT is awash with spammy ads for orgs selling "become a lifestyle e-publisher"; yet I've still never seen a single ad or even non-ad promotion anywhere online for Bookshop.org - even though I've been asked my (disappearing) local indie brick-and-mortar stores since before 2020 when they were going to get it together to challenge the incumbent. As much as we want Bookshop.org to succeed, they'll have to start articulating to the general public a) that they exist, and b) the reasons for choosing them then c) making it easy to buy from them. Years before Covid I asked my bookstores if they were ever going to get around to an integrated gift card, and they missed the boat on that in 2020.

> 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.

isn't the point to support indie bookstores?

what are "affiliates" in this case? there aren't any bookstore chains in the US other than B&N and Amazon of course

I think "affiliates" means "any person/org promoting it in a social media campaign".

(similar to "Amazon affiliate link")

so like skimmers?

Affilate link fraud? No idea. Maybe they should be flattered if scammers think they have enough affiliate revenue to even make affiliate fraud worthwhile.

Affiliates = websites/apps trying to help readers/authors in different ways while trying to make enough to pay for infrastructure / time-to-build.

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.

Thank you for Shepherd, it’s a tremendous resource for finding something to read.

Thanks, it has been fun to build, and got some really cool stuff coming this year :)!

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!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com