Dear Bookshop: An Unrequited Love Letter

Dear Bookshop,

I’m a publisher whose books you sell on your site. I want open this letter by thanking you for trying, by thanking you for getting into the ring with Amazon and trying to offer an alternative to book-buying. It’s valiant, and I’ve been one of the throngs of publishers who’s been deeply supporting you since your launch in 2020.

We’re similar, you and us. We are a small indie hybrid publisher operating in the shadow of much bigger presses with much deeper pockets; you are an online bookstore in the shadow of a giant so big that an industry executive recently told me Bookshop is like a fly on Amazon’s back. A harsh image, yes, but I’m just saying, I do understand what you’re up against. Even more, I know how it feels.

I was an early admirer of yours, and you scratched my itches when you first came on the scene. I bristle at Amazon’s business tactics and how they treat publishers, and I’ve been on the bullhorn for years about the importance of buying indie. We are champions of the independent ecosystem, and since your arrival, my authors have proudly displayed Bookshop buttons on their websites. I worry about the convenience of Amazon and their contribution to the demise of our bookstores, and my authors know they are active participants in the future of our industry, and that their work lies in offering alternatives to their buyers. This messaging is core to my belief system, and me and my authors are true believers. So I know that my powerhouse authors, 1100 strong, have played a role in your growth.

A love affair is a beautiful thing when both parties are getting their needs met. All these years, without effort or needing to tell each other, we’ve loved you and you’ve loved us back. Our books were available and fulfilled. We were never out of stock. What I didn’t realize until it was too late, however, was that our love was predicated on Ingram. I didn’t realize that once we switched distributors, our relationship would change. It’s been jarring to come face-to-face with the full implications that all this time there was a third party in our relationship, and that because I was embedded in that system, I just didn’t know.

I don’t regret moving from Ingram to Simon & Schuster for distribution. As a small hybrid press, we are an underdog. In a recent interview with Michael Castleman (author of The Untold Story of Books) on my podcast, he said that book publishing has always been a dogfight. This resonated because I’ve always been fighting, and never more so since starting a hybrid press. The fight, for me, has always been for and on behalf of my authors. The fight is for legitimacy, for access, for a level playing field. I actually believed that leaping to S&S would be the pinnacle, that I’d have reached the summit and I could lay down my fighting gear. But Castleman had it right, and I’m just fighting new fires.

Still, perhaps you can have empathy for the mindset I’d allowed myself to settle into, and why it was so jarring for me to discover, after our move to Simon & Schuster, that our access to you had been compromised. Perhaps it was a bad omen when, in September of last year, right after our transition from Ingram to S&S, none of our books were available on Bookshop for a couple weeks. My inbox was flooded with emails from concerned authors, but the titles came back online, and we were relieved. It was just a data-transfer issue. Nothing permanent. Nothing too widespread. Thank God.

But month over month since last September, problems have been brewing. Every day in my inbox I get emails from authors whose books are showing up on Bookshop with “backorder” status. Confusing, to be sure, as these are books with plenty of inventory in Simon & Schuster’s warehouse. My troubleshooting began early and hard. In a world of dogfighters, I may not be the strongest, but I never ever let go.

I’ve tackled this problem head-on with Simon & Schuster, who’s told me emphatically that our fulfillment issues with you have nothing to do with stock, but rather with “demand.” So Bookshop would have to have demand. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that consumers can’t express their demand for a product when what they see is a giant message that there is no stock.

To your credit, you’ve been responsive to my pleas to please order our books. Publisher driving demand, okay. But we have 1100 titles (and growing), and I’ve been emailing you lists of five or so titles a week for weeks now, and it’s starting to feel like I’m begging for crumbs. At first I thought this was sustainable, but in recent weeks the same books I asked to have ordered months ago, which showed up as available for a few weeks, were suddenly on backorder again. Confusing, again, as this would imply the books had sold through, which would imply demand.

Meanwhile, a snapshot from my inbox on a given week looks like this:

Re: Bookshop.org is out of stock
Re: Bookshop + bookstores update/request
Re: Bookshop problem again
Re: Bookshop.org Problem
Re: Bookshop & inventory
Re: Urgent - Bookshop - please respond

As the months have passed, I’ve been increasingly disenchanted. Feeling like I’ve let my authors down, I decided to try a few experiments. First, I uploaded two titles to Lightning Source, essentially putting books on print-on-demand status even though we have plenty of stock for these titles in Simon & Schuster’s warehouse. Yes, this worked. But this is a problematic workaround for publishers who have a lot of stock because we want to sell down our existing stock, and print on demand is expensive. The second experiment I tried was to simply order the backordered titles. This felt practically transgressive when I tried it. But lo and behold, I clicked the “backorder” button in all its red, cautionary glory and the books went into my cart with the celebration icon 🎉. I waited to see what would happen after I got the message from Bookshop that it would take the requisite 10 days for the books to arrive. I placed the orders on January 19th and they arrived on Friday the 31st.

Perhaps I’m stating the obvious, but we have a problem here. Demand requires that consumers believe a product is actually available. A giant red backorder button doesn’t invite people to click it. It sends people to Amazon. The fact that my orders of my own backlisted titles were fulfilled without issue, on time, leaves me feeling stung. A simple change to the message on the button would make all the difference in the world. Driving demand by allowing people to actually order would also mean that publishers like me don’t have to field author complaints or get swallowed by their discontent.

I know, Bookshop, that you’re in the dogfight as much as I am. And probably you didn’t even know that I was out here all these years, an admirer and fan. I imagine now, in my new status as jilted lover, you wish I’d stop calling you. But I care deeply about the indie ecosystem, and I won’t stop fighting for my authors. Hanging your entire business model on Ingram’s availability is also not fair to any publisher that has distribution from other distributors, and that list of publishers is only growing.

I want to get back to where we were, and I think we can. I know it will take some problem-solving on your part, but it will be worth it. The work you’re doing matters to publishers and authors, and we all need a reason to rally around alternatives to Amazon.

Thank you,
Brooke Warner
Publisher, She Writes Press and SparkPress