With bookshops closed for much of the last year many of us have turned to online book-buying. New platforms such as hive.com and bookshop.org have sprung up as rivals to Amazon and some independent booksellers have their own online sales web pages. We thought it would be useful to look into how we can best support radical booksellers in this online world.
The best thing you can do is to buy direct from an ARB member. Most of them have websites and many of those have a ‘shop’ tab or similar for online buying. The shop will send you your books in the post and some have a click & collect option for customers who can come to the shop. Where the shop doesn’t have a website, ring them up to order (and pay) over the phone.
Where that’s not possible, the next best option is the independent https://uk.bookshop.org/, (a ‘B Corp’). What’s crucial, however, is to choose a shop first from the ‘choose a bookshop’ tab. You will find many of the ARB members there. Once you’ve done that the shop will receive 30% of what you pay. If you don’t choose a shop first and instead go straight to browse, find the book and order it, ‘your order will contribute to an earnings pool that will be evenly distributed among independent bookshops’.
Hive, another alternative to Amazon, is less generous to booksellers than bookshop.org. It is part of Gardners, the UK’s dominant wholesaler of books and related products. As an incentive to customers wanting to support independent booksellers, after you’ve bought something from them, you choose a bookshop and they give the shop a percentage of your money. They’re rather coy about the percentage, but it’s never more than 8%, well short of bookshop.org.
We’d be pleased to hear from our readers if you know of other ways to buy remotely from radical booksellers during lockdown – and once it’s over too, because we hope that the habit will persist for those of you who for whatever reason can’t visit a radical bookseller in person.
John Goodman
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Radical Bookshops in the UK – Interactive Map
View Radical Book Shops in the UK in a larger mapMember Websites
- 56a Infoshop
- A Sceptic's Bookshelf
- Active Distribution
- AK Press and Distribution
- Andrew Burgin
- Aye-Aye Books
- Back To Books
- Blunt Knife Co.
- Bookbuster
- Bookhaus
- Bookish Type
- Bookmarks
- Books On The Rise
- Calder Bookshop
- Calton Books
- Caracol Books
- Category Is Books
- Connolly’s Wee Bookshop
- Cowley Club
- Dreadnought Books
- Drop City Books
- eco-logicbooks.com
- Five Leaves Booshop
- Freedom
- Gays The Word
- Good Press
- Housmans Bookshop
- Hydra Books
- Just Books
- La Biblioteka
- Left on the Shelf
- Letterbox Library
- Lighthouse Books
- Lockdown Books
- New Beacon Books
- Newham Bookshop
- News from Nowhere
- Northern Herald Books
- October Books
- PaperxClips
- People's Bookshop
- Portal Bookshop
- Printed Matter
- Quaker Center Bookshop
- Reading International Solidarity Centre
- Red Hound Books
- Round Table Books
- Rubicund
- Shalimar Books
- Shelflife Books and Zines
- The Folkestone Bookshop
- The Queerish Bookshop
- The Queery
- The Second Shelf
- Veggies
Bookfairs
- Bradford Anarchist Bookfair
- Bristol Anarchist Bookfair
- Cambridge Radical Bookfair
- Cardiff Anarchist Bookfair
- Derry Radical Bookfair
- Dorset Radical Bookfair
- Edinburgh Anarchist Feminist Bookfair
- Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair
- London Anarchist Bookfair
- London Radical Bookfair
- Manchester Anarchist Bookfair
- Nottingham Radical Bookfair
- Rhyddical-Swansea Bookfair
- Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair
- Swindon Radical Bookfair
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