Amazon Is A Destructive Force In The World Of Bookselling
Their business practices undermine the ability of independent bookstores — and therefore access to independent, progressive, and multicultural literature — to survive. Additionally, Amazon is harmful to local economies, labor, and the publishing world.
Cheap books aren’t always a bargain
Cheap books mean publishers and authors receive less. This doesn’t support the future of book publishing and quality writing. Amazon can offer “discounts” because they are cutting other costs: taxes, publisher payments, author payments, and safe-labor practices.
Amazon has strong-armed many publishers into reducing the prices of their books and eBooks. In some instances when publishers have refused, Amazon has removed the “buy” button from the pages of the publishers’ books. This tactic threatens the ability of publishers to survive in an industry with an already low profit margin.
Amazon uses “loss leaders” to gain an unfair pricing advantage over their bookselling competition. Selling certain books (or Kindles) at a loss or no profit entices customers to their website to buy big ticket items (often non-book items, like electronics, since books are only a tiny fraction of Amazon’s Walmart-esque business model).
“The Amazon model: easy salability, heavy marketing, super-competitive pricing, then trash and replace… Every book purchase made from Amazon is a vote for a culture without content and without contentment.” — author Ursula K. LeGuin
Amazon tax evasion
Until 2011, in most states Amazon was not collecting ANY taxes on direct sales or marketplace goods. That allowed them to gain an advantage in pricing perception during the crucial time when they were expanding. By 2020, lawmakers in most states passed laws to force Amazon to collect state taxes on direct sales, and today Amazon is collecting tax revenue on direct sales and marketplace goods in almost every state. Read more.
Stand in Solidarity with Independent Bookstores
Authors: When promoting your book, use links to independent bookstores, like Bookshop.org, instead of linking to Amazon.
Professors: Encourage your students to buy their classroom texts from independent bookstores.
Teachers and Librarians: If your school has a budget for book purchases, use a local, independent bookstore instead of a large wholesaler or Amazon. It teaches your students the importance of supporting the local economy while giving a boost to an independent bookseller.
Book Buyers and Bookstore Lovers: Call your state/local politicians and urge them to collect sales tax from Amazon, put the revenues into improving school facilities, and increase teacher pay. Most importantly, use your book budget to support independent bookstores and their web stores.
