Midweek sees a couple of interesting, if low-key, stories. Many readers were expressing concern over Amazon as we ended last week after the change of terms removed Kindle book USB transfers from computer to e-reader. I hope we shed light on the story here, and it does feel that some of the absolute panic I saw on social media may have been a little overstated. But still, as people think of alternatives to the Amazon ecosystem, World of Books is expanding, and other options are emerging.
ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
World of Books Expands into the US Market
First is the expansion of World of Books. World of Books isn’t strictly Amazon-free, as it sells on the Amazon marketplace, but it is a huge independent player in online sales. It has $200 million in sales based on thirty-one million units, with those sales coming from used books and books that are new but right at the end of the window in which they could be called frontlist.
Unlike high street remaindered bookstores that tend to have one thousand copies of two or three obscure titles and some cookbooks, World of Books buys a modest amount of many titles. I have certainly found them an invaluable source of newish titles at a reasonable price.
The company recently acquired two US sellers (SecondSale.com and SellBackYourBooks.com) and is looking to the US to become its leading market, taking over from the UK.
The StoryGraph Gains Traction as a Goodreads Alternative
And then there’s an interesting story I came across in The Guardian. It’s sort of news, in that it is taking a look at a company that has grown to the extent that it is peeking its head over the parapet. The StoryGraph is a rival social reading site to Goodreads. It is six years old, but its popularity has taken off recently, and it has just announced figures of 3.8 million users.
What I found most interesting in the interview with its owner, Nadia Odunayo, is her comment on the site’s USP in its readers’ eyes:
“I think the number one thing, if people are comparing us with Goodreads, is that a lot of people do go: ‘It’s just not owned by Amazon.’”
Interesting times.
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