How does IndieBound feel about this, exactly? https://twitter.com/AliWatkins/status/1245754925524619265

1/ It seems to me that Bookshop is good in the short run, but troubling in the longer run. While build around supporting indies, it effectively removes them from the process. Non-affiliate sales earn a generalized kickback to ABA stores.

2/ Affiliate ones earn a direct kickback, but they aren't actualyl involved. They just earn a kickback on a sale. They do nothing--good in the short run, again, but not in the long. The customer isn't theirs. It's an affiliate kickback to an external sale.

3/ Most of all, while I doubt their intentions, they are a private company. Nothing binds them to maintain the terms they currently have. The owner strikes me as a very good egg, but business that disintermediate sales and lock in customers can write their own rules.

4/ If they're serious about never doing this, they could lock themselves in--create a binding contract with booksellers, whereby they could be sued if they changed the terms for the worse after they achieved market share.

5/ Meanwhile, they are a for-profit company. (The "b-corporation" term is not a legal category but a loose, and droppable, private certification.) Contrast this with IndieBound, the online bookstore actually run by the ABA. It's a non-profit trade-organization.

6/ ABA bookstores can join BookShop. Why not, I guess? But doing so starves IndieBound, an organization expressly run by their non-profit trade organization. If BookShop takes off, IndieBound will inevitably wither and die. Would that really be a good thing?

7/ Maybe a for-profit corporation can innovate better than IndieBound can. Depressing, but probable. But I'd love to see indies figure that problem out. There are a LOT of open-source developers out there who'd help them close the gap, if they could accept that help.

Anyway, paging @indiebound, and IndieBound bookstores!

8/ Lastly, bookstores around the world can't accept walk-ins now. But they mostly CAN ship out books. They are DYING to. They have the time—and all that stock stuck on the shelves! Is now really the time to roll out an online service that cuts them out of sales fulfillment?

Update: Private account clued me in that the ABA was in on this. IndieBound will continue, but affiliate sales are going through BookShop. I'm glad of this. And cautiously optimistic.

Even so, I think the ABA should consider what will happen if BookShop gets the market. Companies often offer sweet deals until they get big—until they can dictate worse deals. Remember how Netflix used to have so much? I can't *imagine* that a 10% affiliate kickback will last.