by Alan Beatts
A number of people have asked me about Bookshop.org over the last month. Specifically, they've been drawing my attention to it because they think that it would be really useful to us, especially given the current situation. If you haven't heard about Bookshop.org, the super-short version is that they're offering an almost effortless way that bookstores can sell books on-line and get a very nice percentage of the sales (30% right now). Further, they're offering a much larger percentage of affiliate sales than Amazon (10% vs. 4.5%). And, finally, they're giving a substantial portion of those sales to local bookstores. So far they've raised $1,271,387.61.
So, what's not to like? And, where can Borderlands sign up?
The first one is a complicated question but the second one, that's easy -- Borderlands _can't_ sign up.
The American Booksellers Association has a very long history (it was founded in 1900) and my history with the ABA is long as well. Borderlands became a member in, I dunno, 1998?
The ABA has done some great things. It was the kernel for The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (founded in 1990), an outstanding organization that supports freedom of speech and has mounted highly effective opposition to banning books. It has also worked closely with the BINC Foundation, which provides aid to individual booksellers in financial distress. And it has been a tireless advocate for independent booksellers by providing extensive education opportunities, acting as an advocate, and working in opposition to, initially, the threat posed by large chain stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble and, later, Amazon's domination of the market.
It's also a wealthy, often clueless, organization that see itself as the embodiment of independent bookselling. Perhaps its greatest failing, probably due to institutional blinders, is that when the ABA _thinks_ "bookstore" what it _sees_ is a large, general interest, new bookshop. Problem is; that doesn't describe most of the bookstores in the US. Consequently much of what the ABA does ends up being a Procrustean bed. Everything that doesn't fit gets cut off or distorted. Please bear with me while I dig into the ABA for a bit.
The ABA is wealthy. Per the last federal tax filing in 2018, the ABA has assets of a bit over $34 million and revenue of $3.9 million. In the real world, that's not much for a national trade organization, but we're talking about bookselling here -- that's a lot of cash. In comparison, the average bookstore in the US has an annual revenue of around $225,000
(1). As would suit a wealthy organization, the ABA is generous. Salaries and other compensation in 2018 were $2.4 million. Oren Teicher, the former CEO, pulled down a salary of $379,859 plus $65,367 in other compensation. Remember that average bookstore? Teicher's compensation is just shy of double that amount. It's probably a good thing that the ABA is sitting on so many assets since, in 2018, they had an operating loss of more than three-quarters of a million dollars
(2).
The ABA is clueless. I'll just give a single example because I could go on and on. Since the early 2000s, the ABA has flailed around trying to figure out how to provide access to ebook revenue for indy bookstores. After various false starts (i.e. partnering with Sony and their walled-garden ebook reader), they settled on Kobo. Which is not a bad eReader platform but, the deal that is supposed to make ebook sales have some value for stores nets a participating store around fifty cents per sale
(3). That's a fine model. If a store moved 25% of its business to ebooks they could look forward to going right the hell out of business. So, why the deal in the first place? Every bookseller I've talked to about it has, at best, said, "Well, at least we can sell ebooks. But, it's not really worthwhile." One of the booksellers was an ABA board member at the time! So, in a desire to seem relevant, the ABA chose a solution so bad that, if all their members embraced it and supported it, it would put them out of business (both the members and the ABA). What makes it even better is that, though they didn't come up with a solution, they did create a perception on the part of customers that buying ebooks would support their local store. If that doesn't sufficiently demonstrate the cluelessness of the ABA, just go visit the ABA's ecommerce site -
https://www.indiebound.org. Never heard of it? That's because it's awful and has always been awful.
Bottom line, the ABA is composed of well-meaning people who care about books, readers and bookstores. I would never dispute that. But, as an organization, they're not very competent and they're seriously out of touch with what bookselling is actually like. Here's a secret about bookstores - many of the big, well-known stores are run by people who don't need to survive on their profits. To my certain knowledge there are big bookshops owned by: venture capitalists who did very well during the dot-com boom; people who are well-enough-off to own a villa in Italy for vacations; the heir of a family that owns a significant portion of the downtown of a major city; and a landlord who owns a nice strip of top-end retail buildings in another major city (actually, there are two like that). It is booksellers like that who have the time to serve as board members of the ABA. I certainly have neither the time nor money to do it. No bookseller who is really scrabbling does. It's also booksellers like that who give the ABA the endowments that allow it to function. And, finally, because ABA dues work on a sliding scale, it's the big stores that pay the most in annual dues.
So, you've got an organization steered by booksellers who are complete outliers in their field and headed by an officer whose compensation is almost double the gross sales of the average member store. What could possibly make it better? How about this? The ABA, as an organization, is habitually less than honest in its public communication. The first time I ran into that was a write-up in their newsletter years ago about a town-hall meeting with the CEO. It was described as a pleasant discussion with Northern California booksellers. In fact, it included an exchange between myself and the CEO that was so unpleasant that the president of our local booksellers association apologized to me for the CEO's conduct. Over the years I've seen that pattern of spin-doctoring over and over again. In that case, it wasn't particularly harmful, but it can be. Take the ABA's recent riff, for example. Over the past few years a big talking point for the ABA has been that indy bookselling is doing well and that new stores are opening. It's treated as serious news by places like NPR
(4), The Harvard Business School
(5), and The Voice of America
(6).
But what the ABA has actually been saying is that _their membership_ is growing. If you look at the US Census figures, it's a different story --"For 1992, the Census Bureau reported 13,136 bookstore establishments, consisting of small "independent" stores as well as larger chain stores. As of 2016, the number of stores tallied in the Census Bureau survey had fallen to less than half that figure, to an all-time low of 6,448." Furthermore -- "The bookstore workforce increased by more than 54% from 1992 to 2008. The number of employees then declined substantially, with 45% fewer people (83,319) working in these establishments in 2016 than eight years earlier."
(7) Even adjusted for the closure of Borders and the downsizing of Barnes & Noble, that is still a steady decline.
That kind of spin-doctoring is actually damaging because it gives people a false sense that everything is fine for bookstores. Why does the ABA do it? First, I think it's to maintain the fiction that bookstores are vibrant and important (and, by extension, that the ABA is important and going a good job). Based on what I've seen over the years, that fiction is very important to the ABA. Second, I think it's a function of the institutional blinders that I mentioned earlier. The ABA has a hard time conceiving that bookselling is much bigger than their members.
Last point, and speaking of members. Notice that the census figure for number of bookstores in 2016 was 6,448? The ABA has gotten pretty clever of late and doesn't clearly list their total number of members. But, searching their online list of members without any limit returns 2,817 stores
(8). They do list how many new stores join each year (while omitting the number of stores that stop being members -- perhaps no-one ever leaves?). Per their website, they added 75 members in 2017 and 99 members in 2018. Backtracking from that information suggests that they had 2643 members in 2016. So, the ABA actually represents significantly less than half of bookstores in the US. But you'd never imagine that from either their public statements or the amount of credibility they enjoy.
We haven't been a member since around 2000 or so. I just wasn't willing to participate in an organization like the ABA. I haven't regretted it for one moment.
By now, you're probably wondering what in the world the ABA has to do with Bookshop.org, yeah?
Fair question. Bookshop.org exists because a guy named Andy Hunter went to the ABA with some suggestions about what they could / should do to correct the problems with the ABA's ecommerce site - Indiebound.org. The catch was that the ABA couldn't do it. His suggestions would have meant that they were actually selling books, which they can't do. (Rightly, I think. The ABA is a trade organization. It's not cool for an organization that represents businesses to set up as a competitor.)
I talked to Mr. Hunter yesterday. He's a good guy. I think he really cares about bookstores. Actually, I know he cares about bookstores because, when he couldn't work with the ABA to make something that would be really functional for indy stores, he went and did it himself; in consultation and with the support of the ABA. At the time, he told me, he didn't know about issues with the ABA. In fact, he said he had no idea that any booksellers had problems with the ABA.
So, to participate in Bookshop.org, as a bookseller, you have to be a member of the ABA. Granted, any bookstore can be an affiliate (just like anyone else on the planet) and get a little cut of referred sales but; that is neither financially nor practically the same thing.
Further, part of Bookshop.org's plan is sharing a portion of their profits with independent bookstores. From their website -- "If you want to find a specific local bookstore to support, find them on our map and they'll receive the full profit off your order. Otherwise, your order will contribute to an earnings pool that will be evenly distributed among independent bookstores (even those that don't use Bookshop)."
(9)
The stores that get a piece of that "earnings pool". It's the members of the ABA. No-one else.
Which makes the counter at the top of their site reading, as of this moment, "$1,271,387.61 raised for local bookstores", a bit inaccurate. Might be more honest if it said, "$1,271,387.61 raised for the membership of the American Booksellers Association". Perhaps the ABA's fondness for less-than-straight speech rubbed off? I hope not. But, as my dad used to say, "You can't touch pitch and not be defiled".
The question I had was; Why ABA members only? Since then, I've spoken with Sarah High, Bookshop.org's Partnership's Manager, and with Andy Hunter, the founder. Initially the only answer I got was, "Our reasoning for the ABA requirement is because of our partnership with their organization." But, at the end of a really lovely conversation with Ms. High, she said that it was because of an agreement that they had made with the ABA. An agreement that the ABA requested. No surprise there, really. But then, during my conversation with Mr. Hunter, it turned out that there actually is not a binding agreement in place nor does the ABA have a controlling ownership stake or board position. In an email followup to our call, Mr. Hunter pointed out that, from the very beginning, his understanding with the ABA was that only their members would be participants and that the ABA had been very helpful through the process. But, when all is said and done, the only conclusion that I can come to is that the requirement is there because the folks who run Bookshop.org want it there. Which, I guess, is fine. It's their company, after all. Perhaps they don't want to piss off the ABA. That's never been something that's concerned me very much (shocking, eh?) but I'd hardly suggest that my way of doing business is well suited to most other companies.
I find myself very conflicted about Bookshop.org. It is obviously run by people who share values with me. Most importantly, they both care about independent bookselling and are competent enough to actually do something effective. I absolutely love that they're playing Robin Hood to Amazon's Sheriff of Nottingham; with the greater affiliate percentage and their pass-along-the-profit scheme, they're taking sales away from Amazon and giving the money to bookstores and the people who are generating the sales. During my conversation with Mr. Hunter he genuinely listened to my perception of the problems with the ABA and said he would bring them up. I was left with the feeling that he really would like to see things work out well.
On the other hand, their catering to the ABA doesn't sit very well with me. And, especially at a time like this, when _all_ bookstores are struggling and people are so happy to help, the misdirection in using a phrase like, "XXX dollars raised for local bookstores" and avoiding almost any mention of the ABA on their website is . . . upsetting.
The ultimate feeling I'm left with is that I just wish it were different. Bookshop.org is something that I'm thrilled to see and I would love to support wholeheartedly. I just wish they would support me.
Hell, they seem smart enough. Perhaps they could solve the problem of how to get indy bookstores a good enough margin on ebooks that we could sell them, and not go out of business in the process. That would be cooler than skates on a rattlesnake.
1)
https://www.womply.com/blog/the-state-of-local-bookstores/
2)
https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/view_990/135676641/0ca9d546f5bf1c27b1240f1296c9bab0
3)
https://publishingperspectives.com/2015/08/ebooks-sold-at-independent-bookstores-garner-pitiful-profits/
4)
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/29/598053563/why-the-number-of-independent-bookstores-increased-during-the-retail-apocalypse
5)
https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/20-068_c19963e7-506c-479a-beb4-bb339cd293ee.pdf
6)
https://www.voanews.com/arts-culture/us-independent-bookstores-thriving-and-growing
7)
https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/public-life/bookstores-establishments-and-sales
8)
https://www.bookweb.org/member_directory/search/ABAmember/results/0/0/0/0
9)
https://bookshop.org/pages/about
