Ebook platform Booki.sh has created online stores with five prominent Australian independent book retailers – Gleebooks in NSW, Mary Ryan in NSW and Queensland, Fullers in Tasmania, Books for Cooks in Victoria and Avid Reader of Queensland.
Booki.sh says it competes with global giants like Amazon, Apple and Google by keeping its focus simple: providing the most delightful and accessible reading experience possible.
“To us, delightful and accessible means letting readers continue visiting their local independent bookstore and choosing from a carefully curated range of high quality Aussie and international titles,” Booki.sh’s Peter Haasz.
The five brand partnership follows a successful pilot with Readings Ebooks, which launched at the start of this year.
“Our new Booki.sh retailers love books. With their personal recommendations and their distinct, welcoming, local stores, they’ve earned a special place in the hearts and minds of their many customers over the decades. This is the spirit that many people are afraid will be lost should the faceless robot armies succeed in monopolising ebook sales,” said Virginia Murdoch, of Booki.sh.
Books for Cooks is three-times ABIA Victorian Specialist Bookseller of the Year and Australia’s only retail store specialising exclusively in books about wine, food and the culinary arts.
“Our ebook website now allows us to offer our customers a unique range of food and wine titles from the oldest to the latest in physical and digital formats. Our ebook partner Booki.sh shares many of our values when it comes to books and business. Books for Cooks is very excited to be working with Booki.sh,” said Tim White of Books for Cooks.
Mary Ryan has nine stores operating across South East Queensland.
“We are looking forward to our Booki.sh site to be another source of information for our customers and another platform for them to purchase from and continue enjoy reading the best books,” Danette Smith of Mary Ryan.
Fullers has won the Best Independent Bookseller in Tasmania award 11 times running, and has been a wholly Tasmanian owned and operated business since the early 1920s.
Gleebooks is frequently named the best independent bookshop in Sydney, four-times Australian Bookseller of the Year and the ABIA 2008 Australian Independent Bookseller of the Year.
“Gleebooks is launching into the world of ebook selling, and we’ve decided on a platform that is as egalitarian as it is simple and elegant,” said David Gaunt.
“We’re delighted to be in partnership with an Australian company where as much care has been given to quality of content as to the ease of access to that content. We look forward to connecting our ebook customers to an ever-increasing library of great reading.”
Avid Reader is a favourite bookshop in Queensland’s West End, specialising in new, quality fiction and non-fiction and catering to a wide range of reading across the gamut of human experience and imagination.
“We recently surveyed our customers about their reading habits and ebooks are certainly a part of their future,” said Avid Reader’s Fiona Stager.
“Overwhelmingly our customers want to support Australian businesses and they want to purchase their ebooks from us. As an independent Australian business that offers the greatest range of reading platforms, Booki.sh fits perfectly with our customers’ expectations.
Booki.sh says these bookstores “are only the beginning” with more stores set to partner in coming weeks.
