Amazon is raising his eyebrows with the time of his large book sales for 2025, which ranges from 23 to 28 April – meaning he is competing directly with the Independent Bookstore Day.
As the writer Maris Kreisman explained in Lit Hub, the Independent Bookstore Day is an annual event organized by the American Association of Books (ABA), with events, special guests and exclusive goods in 1,600 participating bookstores. And this year, it is taking place on April 26 (today).
“I please: if you live near an Indie bookstore (and I know many of us still don’t and hope one day we all do), you have to go,” Kreizman said.
Indie libraries appear to be growing in the United States, at least according to last year’s numbers by ABA. But of course, Amazon remains dominant-in 2020, a home committee estimated that the company controlled more than 50% of the total market for print and offline printed books, and is even more prevalent in e-books.
So it is not exactly a good look for the company at the time of its great sale to compete with an event nationwide, festive bookstore.
In fact, Bookshop.org – an Amazon competitor that partners with Indie libraries – emailed customers with a note from CEO Andy Hunter describing Amazon’s sale as “an action calculated by a company that has already placed half of the books out of business, controls over 60% of the market and sells many more books.”
“People in the Amazon responsible for the time of” selling their books “must be ashamed, but they are shameless,” Hunter said.
However, Amazon issued a statement describing the overlap of time as “unintentional”: “Dates for our sale set up this year to accommodate additional participating places.”
Given the company’s scale, it is certainly possible that the independent day of the bookstore is barely registering with the people who set the sale. Despite, Ceo Aba Allison Hill told the Vulture, “at best is insensitive and at worst it looks like a tactic to hurt small businesses.”
