In Hawaii and Alaska, Costco has stopped selling books.
The company shared shipping costs were the reason to stop selling outside of the contiguous US, but that doesn’t account for sales or returns from local distributors and publishers, who benefitted from the discoverability of the warehouse’s book sections for both residents and tourists.
“We knew Costco had the ability to reach a broader market and as a result we’d print a wider selection of books and high print runs,” said Buddy Bess, publisher of Hawaiian publisher Bess Press. “Without that widespread distribution, it limits and narrows our decision making process on what to print and how many copies to print.”
According to two Hawaii Costco store managers, book sales had been declining, and the stores have decided to use the space for faster-selling products.
In other news, the team behind Webtoon and Wattpad have launched Yonder, a new serialized fiction app. They shared in a release that Yonder “elevates serialized fiction, with a focus on curation, stories from influential authors and publishers, and an enhanced experience that rewards readers with more to read.”
The app is currently available on Android and soon to be iOS. Yonder does not have ads, but every story on the platform allows readers several chapters for free before requesting that they “unlock additional chapters using virtual coins.”
Chief content officer Sue Johnson said, “We’re in the business of empowering authors and publishers to tell great stories in a compelling new way. Mobile serialized fiction can unlock creative new ways for authors to tell incredible stories and offers an enormous back catalog opportunity for publishers. We live in an exciting era for readers, authors, and publishers where storytelling technology platforms have made new fiction formats more accessible to a global audience.”
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