Amazon will survive the coronavirus. But local bookstores are fighting for their lives.

Bookstores are more than just places to buy books. They’re community spaces, where customers go to browse, talk, and eat. It’s how they’ve survived Amazon’s discounted prices and fast shipping. But now, with the coronavirus forcing people to stay in their homes, it could cause them to go out of business. 

Independent bookstore has three locations in a 10-mile radius of Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle. Managing partner Robert Sindelar said he didn’t know if he’d have to close the stores temporarily after the governor’s recnet order to shut down restaurants, bars, and recreational spaces. 

“If I can within the government guidelines keep the doors open, even at a low sales rate, I can keep my staff whole, and they don’t have to worry about their financial wellbeing,” said Sindelar, who oversees 45 employees. “If I can keep the doors open, that’s the difference between laying people off and not laying people off.” 

Sindelar started working at Third Place Books just before the internet was adopted in mass in 1998. At the time, the bookstore sold to suburbanites looking to spend time in its 15,000-square-foot space. Amazon, on the other hand, was busy surviving the dot-com bubble burst.

Today, Amazon owns 42 percent of the market for physical books and 89 percent for ebooks. 

“The need and necessity changed. Most of the things you want to do in life you can do with your screen now. So when you choose to step away from your screen, what do you want out of that experience?” Sindelar said. “You want a meaningful experience in physical space.”

Image: White Whale Bookstore

Now, Third Place Books depends on food and coffee to draw in customers. At the White Whale Bookstore in Pittsburgh, literary events make up 40 percent of co-owner Jill Yeomans’ business. 

But unlike the financial crisis in 2008, the coronavirus threatens these social spaces. In response, independent bookstores from the East to West Coast are temporarily closing their doors to contain the outbreak. Powell’s Books in Portland, the world’s largest independent bookstore, was forced to lay off most of its staff.

Many are scrambling for creative solutions to sustain themselves. Third Place Books, for example, is offering free shipping for online purchases and Grubhub deliveries for bookstore cafe orders. It’s also considering moving upcoming book fairs and author events online. Other bookstores are offering curbside pickup for local orders. 

Resource-strapped bookstores like the White Whale will depend on phone and email sales. There are some startups, however, trying to offer relief. 

Andy Hunter, publisher of Literary Hub and four other literature sites, told me only about 150 booksellers in the country sell a meaningful amount of books online. The cost of building a website, combined with the lack of inventory and human resources to compete with Amazon, leave about 85 percent of bookstores out of e-commerce, he said.

Hunter founded the five-person startup Bookshop, which he presented before the American Booksellers Association at a conference ahead of its launch in February.

Yeomans recalled initial skepticism from her fellow indie booksellers at the conference. Having witnessed the way Amazon had spread its tentacles, many speculated that Bookshop also wanted a big cut of their sales.

“There were hundreds of booksellers waiting to hear what he had to say, and I walked out of it like, ‘This person cares about indie booksellers, they want to support us,'” Yeomans said. “They’ve looked at research, the website looks smart and intuitive and young. And it really felt like something that can add to our sales — not instead of them.”

Here’s how it works: Hunter’s team creates Bookshop stores for local booksellers for free (think: Etsy stores). His book distribution partner Ingram then takes care of inventory, packing, and shipping. Finally, indies receive 30 percent of the cover price from sales they generate via link referral, and 10 percent from those by non-bookstore affiliates. (In comparison, Amazon offers only a 4.5-percent commission to whomever’s links generate sales for its site.)

Altogether, Bookshop contributes 75 percent of its total profit margins to local bookstores.

To be sure, Bookshop still takes some money. But it gives shops like the White Whale, and around 800 others, a chance to take their business online. 

In Sindelar’s words, it’s a “sophisticated vehicle” that allows indie buyers to support the local bookstore market as a collective whole.

Seattle-based startup Libro.fm is giving all proceeds from first-time purchases to independent bookstores  in light of the coronavirus outbreak. 

But where it stands out, Sindelar thinks, is its ability to help independent bookstores penetrate publishing’s fastest growing market: audiobooks. Amazon and its subsidiary Audible control more than half of U.S. audiobook sales. 

Before Libro.fm, local bookstores were largely confined to selling CD audiobooks. But as consumers transitioned from CD and MP3 players to smartphones, they were left out of the digital audiobook marketplace where Audible and Apple now dominate. 

“I had no ability to sell my customers digital audio. I was completely out of the game, so I wasn’t really sacrificing anything,” Sindelar said of Libra.fm.

“All my effort is really on the front end of getting you into that ecosystem. If you become a subscriber, then I’m throwing no labor into selling to you at that point.”

But Bookshop and Libro.fm, along with other book startups, depend on limited budgets and grassroots marketing.

Ironically, that, too, was Jeff Bezo’s strategy for Amazon in 1997. He didn’t advertise Amazon anywhere in its inaugural year, and relied instead on the media and word of mouth for exposure. 

Local bookstores know where that story led. This time around, maybe tech companies and independent booksellers can build something different.