Why do we also sell our books through Bookshop.org?
Special thanks go to our longtime friend and reader Sheryl Fullerton, known by book lovers for her many years as head of Jossey-Bass publishing, for asking us to explain why Bookshop.org links are important today.
The answer is: While most of our readers love the convenience of buying books from Amazon, many readers are making a conscious choice to make at least some of their purchases through this innovative company that helps to support indie bookstores nationwide. A recent New York Times story about the company reported:
When Andy Hunter started Bookshop in 2020, his goal was to build an online bookstore that served as an indie alternative to Amazon. Five years later, more than 2,200 independent bookstores sell books through the site, which has generated more than $35 million in profit for participating stores. … The site has proved popular with booksellers: Out of the 2,433 stores that the American Booksellers Association counted as members in 2024, around 90 percent use Bookshop.
In her email to our home office, Sheryl advised us that we should more regularly include direct links to Bookshop.org in our coverage of new books.
She’s right—although sometimes the speed of publication for each weekly issue means that we add the Amazon link and don’t have the time to add all of the other alternative links. We also sell books, for example, through Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, Walmart and many other bookstores in the U.S. and around the world.
So, here’s an example of the way we hope to present links to readers with our coverage. (Yes, Amazon is the first link, because even Bookshop founder Andy Hunter admits that Amazon sells about 100 books for every paperback or hardback that he is able to sell. Amazon remains the most convenient choice for most of us.)
And, stay tuned: Bookshop.org announced recently that it hopes to expand its digital book sales. When that system is perfected so that publishers can easily supply content, Front Edge Publishing also plans to be part of that offering.