“When COVID-19 forced non-essential businesses to close across the country last month, independent bookstores shuttered their doors and feared the worst. Already, these stores operated on slim margins and in the shadow of Amazon’s dominance. A prolonged period of closure might not only shift consumer habits toward online buying, but also erode the communities that they had worked so hard to foster.
Owners say that it’s not just their solvency at stake — but also the role of books in American communities.
‘If Amazon really wipes out independent bookstores, the end result isn’t just going to be that they get all the book sales in the world,’ Andy Hunter, the founder of Bookshop.org, tells TIME. ‘It’s going to be that people read fewer books.’ “

Indie Bookstores Are Fighting to Survive the Pandemic. A New Movement May Have the Answer https://a.msn.com/r/2/BB133Bv4?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare