Bookshop.org: A “New” Way to Support Your Favorite Indie Bookstore

Hello Bloglandia!!!

Most of the time I come across something I’m told is “new and amazing and innovative” it’s not.

Or maybe I’m just overly cynical.

But recently I learned about a new way to support indie/local bookstores that really did seem amazing and pretty darn innovative.

The site is called Bookshop.org and I mentioned them briefly a couple weeks ago, but now it’s time for me to explain a bit more about what they’re doing and why I’m feeling so giddy about them despite my usual cynicism toward… well, everything.

Basically, Bookshop.org takes a portion of the purchase price of every book sold on their site and gives it back to physical, indie/local bookstores.

What they do is when you buy a book through them, if you select your favorite local bookstore, 30 percent of the sale is donated directly to that bookstore.

Note: 30 percent is the full profit margin on a book, so basically the bookstore gets the full profit from the Bookshop sale.

So what happens if you don’t select a store? Well, indie bookstores still benefit because 10 percent of the sale goes into a pool and that pool is split amongst ALL the local bookstores who participate in Bookshop.org’s program.

Pretty darn nice, right?

Want the cold-hard facts? Well…

The most recent report (which I happened to receive right before typing this up) states Bookshop.org sent 21 million dollars to independent bookstores in 2021 — 12.7 million of this went directly to over 1323 bookstores, and 6 million went into that pool that was split amongst 1391 stores.

So why wouldn’t you just go to your local bookstore and buy the book?

Well, first off, online shopping is pretty darn convenient, and more and more people have turned to it in the past couple years. This has hit physical bookstores pretty hard, so Bookshop.org is trying to offset that damage.

Two, sometimes your local bookstore doesn’t carry the book you’re after. Bookshop.org provides way to order the book online while also making sure your favorite store still gets some cash in their pockets.

Third, if you move away from your favorite indie store, Bookshop.org allows you to keep supporting them from a distance.

Anyway, all in all, I think this is a pretty magical idea and I hope they keep at it (they’ve now been doing this for two years).

A final fun bit about Bookshop.org… you can create your own profile page to show off lists of your favorite books, which is always an irresistible way to procrastinate!

If you’d like to support your favorite indie bookstore, check out the lists I’ve created so far, or if you want to have a gander at what Bookshop.org is all about, just pop into that link below.

I love indie bookstores!

Note: If you’re curious how Bookshop.org can possibly be making any money on this scheme, the books on the site are a couple dollars more than you’d pay on other websites. Still, over 75% of what they bring in goes to support indie bookstores.

That’s it everyone. I’ll be back tomorrow with a strange announcement. See you then! And in the meantime, happy book shopping!!!

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