Shelf Awareness
Penguin Random House U.K. has launched My Independent Bookshop, a reader recommendation platform designed to allow readers to set up a "virtual bookshop," share their favorite reads and discover, recommend and review books online. The site went up yesterday in closed beta to begin a month-long period in which select authors and book fans will be invited to join the community and start creating shops. Anyone interested in the project can register now to be among the first to set up their virtual bookshop when My Independent Bookshop goes live to the general public.Readers who do not want to set up a shop can still wander the virtual high streets and browse shop windows. They can buy books online through hive.co.uk, the e-commerce arm of Gardners wholesalers that is connected with hundreds of independent bookshops across the U.K. As part of the registration process, My Independent Bookshop users can also choose their favorite real-world indie to connect with and Hive will pass a commission from any purchase made through the website to that shop.
"By giving people the magical experience of curating their own bookshop and sharing this with their communities we are putting the discovery of great books and authors--no matter who they are published by--directly into the hands of book lovers," said Hannah Telfer, group director, consumer & digital development at Penguin Random House U.K. Author Terry Pratchett noted that independent bookshops "supported this jobbing genre author long before the geeks were let out of their wardrobes... being able to support these talented retail wizards through My Independent Bookshop is a very, very good thing."
Julie Howkins, e-commerce manager at Gardners, added: "This collaboration allows hive to be part of a fantastic initiative which will not only encourage people to share their passion for reading and books with like-minded people, but will also help support hundreds of independent bookshops across the U.K."
Sheila O'Reilly of Dulwich Books in London told the Bookseller she supports the venture and has created a virtual bookshop profile that reflects "the magic" of her real-world shop: "My Independent Bookshop is going to give us the ability to display and review titles, reach a wider audience and sell books at the same time."
1 comment:
"My" "Independent" "Bookshop". Lots of inverted commas needed (i.e. not mine, not independent (it is owned by Penguin Random House) and not a bookshop: more a way of dissolving bookshops and their expertise into an immense "democratic" sea of amateur recommenders, complete with monetisation (c.f. what Goodreads is to Amazon)). Penguin Random should put less effort into providing for (creating) a post-bookshop world and more into supporting actual independent bookshops (who, after all, are on the ground supporting them). Obviously Penguin Random has determined that people love the idea of independent bookshops and so have appropriated their hard-earned appeal. The idea that anyone can "have" an independent bookshop simply by logging into a publisher-owned website is pretty insulting to actual independent bookshops. -TK
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