Amazon’s ebook monopoly is to be challenged by a revolutionary scheme which will allow independent bookstores to make money from the digital books sold by a separate organisation.
The bookshop.org online marketplace is launching an ebook platform with more than 1 million titles available in an attempt to ensure “our literary culture and reading lives are not controlled by billionaires”.
Each buyer of an ebook on the bookshop.org website — which will have the same prices as Amazon — can nominate an independent bookshop that will be given the profits from the sale when the scheme launches on October 1.
Nicole Vanderbilt
Nicole Vanderbilt, the managing director of the company, said they wanted to give independent booksellers, defined as having no more than ten premises, “a fair share of the total book market”.
