Jaime Clark, co-owner of Newtonville Books in Newton, Mass., and author of the upcoming novel Vernon Downs, has launched the website Please Don't Buy My Book on Amazon.com, imploring prospective readers to skip Amazon and, before pub date, buy directly from the publisher, Roundabout Press.
In an open letter to consumers, Clark wrote: "A day I've been dreading is soon upon Roundabout--the moment when they must apply for the barcode for the cover. Once the book acquires a barcode, it enters the publishing bloodstream, which generally triggers an Amazon listing."
Vernon Downs won't be available from general retailers--independents or otherwise--until April 2014; proceeds from all orders placed between now and April will go entirely to Roundabout, with Clark donating any royalties earned during that time. Customers who order directly from Roundabout also have the option to support their local bookstores by "entering their name and address in the Special Instructions field when you checkout and Roundabout will donate 50% of the monies (excluding shipping) to that bookstore."
Clark explained: "As a bookstore owner, I see small presses come and go--they usually publish a book or two and then fold after running out of money. For many small publishers like Roundabout, Amazon accounts for a large portion of sales, but the publisher realizes very little of the purchase price owing to Amazon's discounting policies. So... please don't buy it on Amazon."
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Another bookseller-author, Bill Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage, Corte Madera and San Francisco, Calif., suggests many independents, "some of America's great bookstores," on his website to people who want to buy his novel, The Circle of Thirteen (Turner Publishing).
Petrocelli commented: "I get really disheartened every time I see a routine, mindless 'buy-link' to Amazon on author websites. (It's even worse when it's an author I know or one who's coming to our store for an event.) Needless to say, I never even considered doing that.
"I thought about simply directing any sales to Book Passage, but I quickly decided that wasn't such a good idea either. As an author, it's in my best interest to spread sales around and get as many stores involved as possible.
"I finally decided I wanted to give potential customers the sense of what it is like to deal first hand with some of America's great bookstores. I put in a link to Indiebound.org, but I also decided to put in individual links to many independent stores and to include a little bit of information about each one of them. The link in each case goes to the page on that store's website where my book is featured."