Indies in USA Unite?

[cfrizz]

The bottom line is that the majority of people are concerned with their bottom line regardless of supporting the "community." People are going to go with whatever they can get at the lowest price...or go with the convenience of having it delivered right to their door without having to go out to get it! ESPECIALLY during a massive pandemic!

[darryl]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

The bottom line is that the majority of people are concerned with their bottom line regardless of supporting the "community." People are going to go with whatever they can get at the lowest price...or go with the convenience of having it delivered right to their door without having to go out to get it! ESPECIALLY during a massive pandemic!

Exactly.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

The bottom line is that the majority of people are concerned with their bottom line regardless of supporting the "community." People are going to go with whatever they can get at the lowest price...or go with the convenience of having it delivered right to their door without having to go out to get it! ESPECIALLY during a massive pandemic!

Yep, even those of us who aren't that worried about getting the rock bottom lowest price need a reason other than simply "community". At the minimum, they have to be as good as.

[fjtorres]

The service is now up in the UK:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...u-k-sales.html

Bookshop, which launched in the U.S. in January, partners with independent bookstore and affiliates, and markets itself as a solution for bookstores that don't have robust online operations to sell books to customers who might otherwise go to competitor's websites. Hunter says the Booksellers Association in the U.K. got in touch with him shortly after the U.S. launch to discuss the possibility of expansion. Unlike in the U.S., where the American Booksellers Association has offered stores a variety of options to sell books online, including IndieBound, the U.K.'s BA has no such program. The U.K. site was planned, organized and launched in a three-month window. "It was daunting," admitted Hunter, "but we are happy that we stretched ourselves and got it done."

As of Tuesday, 150 bookstores across the U.K. had signed up to be Bookshop affiliates. Distribution is through Gardners and shipping times are two to three days from order to delivery. "Discounts for books are a bit worse in the U.K., but when you include shipping, the price to buy a book from the site is approximately the same as what you would pay in a store," said Hunter.

Bold mine.
So, same price; two to three day delay.

No "community engagement" socializing or "serendipitous stroll through the aisles", though.

More at the source.

[binaryhermit]

What would ordering a dead tree book from Amazon without Prime look like in the UK
I assume cheaper and similar or perhaps shorter delay

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

What would ordering a dead tree book from Amazon without Prime look like in the UK
I assume cheaper and similar or perhaps shorter delay

On a quick check, yes to cheaper.
Amazon quote 3-5 days for free delivery, but in practice it always seems to be quicker than that, so shorter delay: maybe, maybe not.

This is never going to offer a 'better' service in pure price terms, but that isn't what it is trying to do.

[Uncle Robin]

Many of the points in this article were raised much earlier in this very thread, I think

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture...er-waterstones

[Quoth]

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture...er-waterstones

Book wholesale is now not needed, they are parasites. Publishers should ship direct to bookshops for paper and sell ebooks from their own sites without DRM.

Bookshop.org is not the solution to Amazon's dominance.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Quoth

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture...er-waterstones

Book wholesale is now not needed, they are parasites. Publishers should ship direct to bookshops for paper and sell ebooks from their own sites without DRM.

Bookshop.org is not the solution to Amazon's dominance.

Consumers don't want to go directly to the Publishers sites, heck most consumers can't even tell you who the publisher is for the books they read.

Very few news stands, grocery stores and the like want to deal with publishers, they just want someone to stock the shelves with the current set of best sellers and whatever the casual book buying public might want.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Book wholesale is now not needed, they are parasites. Publishers should ship direct to bookshops for paper and sell ebooks from their own sites without DRM.

I have no interest in going to numerous different publisher's websites to buy books. I don't know who publishes the books I read, nor am I interested in finding out. And why would bookstores want to deal with having multiple deliveries from dozens of different small publishers?

Some people might take your statement to the next level and say that "Publishers are now not needed, they are parasites. Authors should sell ebooks directly from their own sites without DRM."

Or, instead, they could avoid all the hassle of running their own sites, and sell through Amazon instead.

The extreme view would be that the author provides value by writing the book. An editor provides value by making the book better. Amazon/Kobo/... provide value by providing store services and discoverability. Everything in between has to justify its value.

[Quoth]

No, Bookshops mostly (all?) use computer POS and computer ordering. There is no point to wholesale now. Publishers are needed. Many of the wholesale don't deal with small publishers anyway.

Authors mostly have neither the time nor expertise to be publishers, so it's a totally invalid comparison.

Amazon largely cuts out the middlemen, the wholesale like Gardners, yet Bookshop.org gives a cut to Gardners. That makes no sense.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Everything in between has to justify its value.

What value does a big wholesaler add now? They often don't even stock. With computer ISBN catalogues it's just as easy for a local book shop to order from a publisher or for Bookshop.org to order from the Publisher.
Nielsen actually offers a free service for Bookshops and Publishers.
https://www.nielsenisbnstore.com/Home/EnhancedServices

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Quoth

No, Bookshops mostly (all?) use computer POS and computer ordering. There is no point to wholesale now. Publishers are needed.

I wonder what part of the industry you work in?

[Quoth]

I mean for books. Not other goods.

[fjtorres]

Bookshop's arrival in the UK has been getting a wee bit of pushback as pointed out above:

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Many of the points in this article were raised much earlier in this very thread, I think

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture...er-waterstones

When Bookshop.org arrived in the UK on 2 November, the announcement was met by a huge amount of public enthusiasm from bookshops, publishers, authors, literary critics and readers alike. “This is revolutionary”, read a Guardian headline, while authors including Margaret Atwood, Richard Osman and Caitlin Moran directed their Twitter followers to purchase their latest books from the site. For many, it was a welcome initiative – finally, it seemed, here was an efficient, competitively priced platform dedicated to supporting independent bookshops.

But a number of high street booksellers and independent publishers are increasingly sceptical of Bookshop.org. “What sticks in the throat is that it seems not remotely to be what it purports to be,” said James Daunt, founder of the independent book chain Daunt Books and managing director of high street bookseller Waterstones. “But they do just enough for it to appear credible and it’s a really nice story: who doesn’t love an anti-Amazon story?”

Tamsin Rosewell, a bookseller at Kenilworth Books, Warwickshire, said Bookshop.org “crashed in like a juggernaut, and seems to be attempting to homogenise all indie bookshops into one online presence”. Its launch, she said, was “arrogant and clumsy”.

First, the finances. One independent bookseller, who asked not to be named, told me: “We’re losing out substantially.” For every book sold via Bookshop.org, they explained, their shop makes 13-20 per cent less than if the customer had bought the same book, at the same cover price directly from the shop. “Bookshops would usually take between 43 and 50 per cent on a book,” they said. The 30 per cent an independent shop receives from each Bookshop.org sale has been described widely as a “full profit margin”. This, the website's CEO, Andy Hunter, explained, is the money left after the 7 per cent customer discount, payments to the publisher, wholesaler and payment processor, and the 4 per cent Bookshop.org takes. But the anonymous bookseller claimed the phrase is “misleading”.

Jules Button, owner of Woodbridge Emporium bookshop in Suffolk, agrees. She said customers had ordered books from Bookshop.org thinking they were buying direct from her, unknowingly leaving Woodbridge Emporium to miss out on 13-20 per cent of the takings. “The general public genuinely think they are helping independent bookshops,” said Button. “I don’t think a lot of them realise it’s just another big warehouse and it’s a fulfilment service.”

The numbers don’t work in favour of publishers either. The publishing director of a small independent press, who asked to remain anonymous, told me that when Bookshop.org launched, they felt under pressure from the wider industry to open a page on the site because it seemed every other shop and publisher was – they didn’t want to be left behind. Amazon buys the publisher’s books at 40 per cent of the cover price. But to sell books via Bookshop.org the publisher must go via wholesaler Gardners, with which it already has an agreement of a 55 per cent discount, alongside extra costs like commissions to sales representatives and distribution fees. The director said that, with all these costs included, they sell books to Bookshop.org at around 35 per cent of the cover price: for every book sold on Bookshop.org, they earn 5 per cent less than if they had sold that book on Amazon, the very company Bookshop.org claims to be “fairer” than

The numbers are...interesting...

35% to the publisher
30% to the bookstore

7% discount to the consumer

28% to...? The middlemen?

Amazon pays 40% to the publisher and discounts...30%(?) to the consumer. No middleman required because they do everything the middlemen and the retailer do for their 30% slice.

Hmm...

More at the source.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Bookshop's arrival in the UK has been getting a wee bit of pushback:

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture...er-waterstones

The numbers are...interesting...

More at the source.

Isn't this the same article I posted the link to several days ago?