Hyperallergic on the Call to Direct Readers and Media Outlets Away From Amazon

At Hyperallergic, Hakim Bishara helps urge readers to buy directly from small presses instead of Amazon in these tough times, referencing Ugly Duckling Presse's recent open letter: “We are all doing the hard, joyful work of connecting writers and readers with urgent, risk-taking intellectual material that has no other home. Directing readers to buy their books from Amazon is harmful to the authors, and the publishers, whose work you are trying to support," it reads. More:

The letter continues with blistering criticism of the retail giant’s moral shortcomings: “Amazon has a gruesome list of flaws — from worker’s rights, environmental impact, enabling xenophobic government agencies, and predatory pricing on all types of products, to the more literary concerns of their overt antagonism towards book shops and indifference towards counterfeit materials — but they still overwhelm us with extreme convenience and occasional posturing as a champion of consumer freedom.”

This issue is gaining Increasing relevance during these days of the COVID-19 pandemic, as people are catching up on their reading lists while stuck at home. (See our staff’s reading list recommendations here.)

Moreover, the small publishers accuse Amazon of slowing their businesses by listing titles distributed by Small Press Distribution (a non-profit literary distributor based in Berkeley, California) as out of stock even when they are in print; negotiating aggressively for wholesale discounts; underselling bookstores and “cutting into the tiny profit margins that keep small presses afloat.”

To put an end to that, the small presses are urging media outlets to link titles to the publishers’ websites or to the book’s page on the distributor’s site or at online booksellers that support independent publishing like Bookshop and Powell’s Books. (After previously using Amazon’s Associates Program, Hyperallergic is now working with Bookshop, which pledges about 75% of its profit margin to the publisher or bookstore.)

What constitutes a small press? According to Matvei Yankelevich, UDP’s founding editor, a small press can be narrowly defined as “an organization where the editor does the work of publishing.”

“That’s different from the business of publishing,” he told Hyperallergic in an interview. “The small press is historically rooted in volunteer or nonprofit models. It’s non-commercial by its nature.”

The piece goes on to mention Yankelevich's series of posts for Harriet, in which he "expounds on the difficulties facing small presses while warning against an increasingly 'professionalized or gentrifying literary field.'" Check out the full article here.