Yesterday, it was Independent Bookstore Day. This means it wasn’t a British ‘thing’ because we Brits have bookshops, not bookstores, just like we have work colleagues and not co-workers. Although we did recently have Record Store Day, which shouldn’t exist in Britain because we have Record Shops. But I digress. What do you think Amazon did on Independent Bookstore Day? Quite deliberately, they held a book sale day on the same day. Amazon hates the idea of independent anything. Isn’t it time to say: fuck you, Amazon?
Slap-headed Amazon owner Jeff Bezos showed his true colours in last year’s US presidential elections by banning the newspaper he owns, the legendary-no-more Washington Post (Watergate, anyone?), from supporting a candidate who wasn’t Donald Trump. Then, he donated at least a million dollars to Trump’s victory parade, along with fellow tech bros Tim Cook and brown-noser in chief Mark ‘Facebook/Threads/Instagram/WhatsApp’ Zuckerberg. I am less inclined than ever to buy anything even vaguely connected to Bezos, although I accept it’s not easy and sometimes it’s all but impossible.
As I do with music, I buy some of my books from Amazon because it’s so easy and so much cheaper. If I can, I buy direct from the author, which is much more expensive. It’s like anything else in business. A great behemoth like Amazon can bulk buy, stack high and sell cheap, which is why most of us go to, say, Tesco rather than seek out small, independent shops.
I am not saying that that Amazon is all bad. On the contrary, it provides an astonishing selection of products at prices that otherwise we might never obtain, nor afford. And it enables unsuccessful writers like me to self-publish our work. But Amazon does so much more. It pays out miniscule amounts by way of royalties to the extent that unless we sell thousands of copies of our books, we are rewarded in pennies. And it actively stamps on anything and anyone it considers to be competition. Like bookshops.
I am so exercised on the subject that I try to avoid buying second hand books (and records) because writers and artists literally get paid nothing, although I do accept this is difficult. My position on the matter is simple: if I can afford to pay the full whack, then I will.
It did not take me long, many years ago, for me to convinced that I should endeavour to shop locally, preferably from independents. I like little book shops, little record shops, little arty farty tat shops, as I have an unfortunate way of calling them. However, the modern world has convinced us that big is beautiful and that if we can get our goods from the likes of Bezos instead of small-time businesses with a personal and local touch, then that’s just fine.
It’s harder to do what I increasingly consider to be The Right Thing and because of the way of the internet world it’s sometimes impossible for me to avoid using Amazon. But I am far more inclined to use local shops rather than Amazon when the latter acts deliberately to fuck them over, as with Bookstore Day.
Big isn’t always beautiful – stop sniggering at the back – and supporting the little guy (and gal) is good for everyone. Amazon doesn’t want competition: it wants domination by monopoly. I’m going to do my little bit to stand up to them. If we all did, wouldn’t the world be a better place?
