City Spotlight: Exploring Seattle's Book Ecosystem
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It’s not all sweetness and light, however. Like Seattle’s overcast skies, Amazon casts a long shadow over the city, but that’s not always a bad thing for the literary community. Independent bookstores continue to shutter, in large part due to the shift to online commerce and the rise of ebooks. (As the second-largest retailer in the U.S., Kirkland-based Costco has also played a part in shifting book-buying habits — getting your book onto pallets and into their warehouses virtually guarantees thousands of sales.) Amazon’s strong-arm tactics with publishers both large and small has not been lost on the literary community, either. However, Amazon does bring many positives to the city. With the onset of its publishing program, the online behemoth has drawn fresh publishing talent to the city. “Amazon has perked things up quite a bit. There’s a whole infusion of new people who moved here to work on their publishing program,” says Adrian Liang, associate publisher at becker&mayer!, one of the largest book packagers in the U.S.
- Companies:
- Amazon.com