Bookshop.org Booms with eBooks and Indie Support in Wake of Political Shift
Bookshop.org, the online retailer known for championing independent bookstores, is experiencing a powerful resurgence in 2025—fueled by a timely combination of political awareness, strategic upgrades, and a bold expansion into digital formats.
In a recent episode of Open Book with David Steinberger, founder Andy Hunter shared that Bookshop’s newly launched ebook feature is already outpacing expectations, contributing 5% of total sales—a milestone they hadn’t expected to reach until 2026. “It’s already performing three times better than we forecast,” said Hunter.
The digital addition comes as part of a broader upswing for the platform. After a few years of declining revenue following its pandemic-era debut, Bookshop.org is back in growth mode. With projections between $70–$75 million in total sales for 2025, the company is on track for a dramatic leap from its $44 million revenue in 2024. To put that in perspective, 2020 marked a $60 million launch year bolstered by COVID-driven online buying and anti-Amazon sentiment.
So what’s behind the new surge?
“We’re up 65% year-to-date over 2024,” Hunter confirmed. “Bookseller earnings are up 70%.” But he also credits a surprising catalyst: the public reemergence of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on the political stage. “Bezos’s overt praise of Trump, including attending the inauguration, spiked our sales about 20% in late January,” Hunter noted. “It wasn’t anything we advertised—we simply saw a wave of word-of-mouth support from people wanting to push back against the power of tech giants and corporate monopolies.”
That organic activism arrived at the same time as a suite of site enhancements rolled out by Bookshop.org. The site now features a faster, more intuitive user interface, smarter search tools, and email marketing tailored to individual reading preferences. “Traffic has risen by 20%, but sales are up 65%, thanks to those improvements and the increasing urgency among consumers to support alternatives to Amazon,” said Hunter.
The combination of technological upgrades and timely political discourse has elevated the platform’s mission and visibility. Hunter’s perspective remains grounded but aspirational: “You don’t have to take down the giant. Just stealing a crumb from its mouth is enough to sustain the entire ecosystem of indie bookstores.”
Bookshop.org’s evolution—from a scrappy pandemic startup to a maturing platform with a growing digital footprint—proves that even small players can make a major impact when the moment, message, and momentum align.