Amazon is elevating eyebrows with the timing of its big book sale for 2025, which runs from April 23 to twenty-eight — which suggests it’s competing instantly with Independent Bookstore Day.
As author Maris Kreisman explained in Lit Hub, Unbiased Bookstore Day is an annual occasion organized by the American Booksellers Affiliation (ABA), with occasions, particular company, and unique merchandise at 1,600 collaborating bookstores. And this yr, it’s happening on April 26 (right this moment).
“I implore you: if you happen to reside close to an indie bookstore (and I do know that many people nonetheless don’t and I hope sooner or later all of us do), you have to go,” Kreizman stated.
Indie bookstores do seem like on the upswing in america, a minimum of according to last year’s numbers from the ABA. However after all, Amazon stays dominant — in 2020, a House committee estimated that the corporate managed greater than 50% of the whole on-line and offline print ebook market, and it’s much more dominant in e-books.
So it’s not precisely a superb search for the corporate to time its large sale to compete with a nationwide, celebratory bookstore occasion.
In truth, Bookshop.org — an Amazon competitor that partners with indie bookstores — emailed clients with a observe from CEO Andy Hunter describing Amazon’s sale as “a calculated transfer by an organization that has already put half the bookstores within the nation out of enterprise, controls over 60% of the market and sells way more books than all indie bookstores mixed.”
“The individuals at Amazon chargeable for the timing of their ‘Guide Sale’ must be ashamed, however they’re shameless,” Hunter stated.
Amazon, nevertheless, released a statement describing the timing overlap as “unintentional”: “The dates for our sale had been set this yr to accommodate further collaborating international locations.”
Given the corporate’s scale, it’s actually attainable that Unbiased Bookstore Day barely registered with the individuals scheduling the sale. Even so, ABA CEO Allison Hill told Vulture, “At finest it’s insensitive and at worst it looks as if a tactic to harm small companies.”