Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Independent bookshops have a lot to deal with this year. They were already suffering enough having to compete with Amazon, and now during periods of lockdown they are forced to close or adapt in the face of impossible odds. It's a good time to remember that our purchases can make a real difference to small businesses.

https://bookshop.org/
https://uk.bookshop.org/

Bookshop.org is a socially conscious alternative to Amazon, which helps support indie bookshops. It's already contributed $7.5mil to indie bookshops in the US, and it launched in the UK this week. (Sorry to non-UK and non-US members, it's not in your area yet).

Next time you buy a book, consider using this site so that 75% of the profits can go to indie bookstores who really need our help right now. Their catalogue rivals that of amazon for newer releases and it's just as easy to use (no need to shop around).

I hope that someone in this group can benefit from finding this, because I know how much we all care about reading - it's where I'll be buying all my new books from now on. Sadly it's not the best for vintage titles as far as I can tell, so I'll probably stick to AbeBooks, ebay, etc. for those.

Yes, I realise the irony of posting this on a website owned by Amazon :')

I've found that a lot of independent bookstores also sell used books on Ebay (I wish they would sell on bookstore.com but I haven't found that they do); That's one of the first places I check when looking for books. I try to avoid the big sellers like Thriftbooks not only to support the small mom-and-pop shops but also because the big sellers often don't deliver the quality that they promise in the listing. I've lost track of the number of times I ordered a book in "Like New" or "Very Good condition but received something that is falling apart, or even sometimes a completely different (usually older) printing of the book. You then have to pay for return postage if you want them to refund your purchase. Smaller sellers like independent bookstores are much better at delivering the quality they promised.

If you are buying used books, "very good" condition means the OPPOSITE of good condition. For some silly reason.

Buying online can be difficult, there's often not all the information there.