When the news about Amazon Books was first announced, I tweeted this out:
Reward for the 1st person who takes a photo of themselves buying from an indie bookstore on their phone while standing in an Amazon Books.
— Paul Constant (@paulconstant) November 3, 2015
If you were unaware, Amazon has actively promoted "showrooming," which is the act of standing in a brick-and-mortar bookstore, looking at a book, and then buying it on Amazon, rather than from the bookstore. You're using the bookstore as a showroom for Amazon, but the bookstore, which pays rent and salaries and all the other expenses of running a small business, gets absolutely nothing. BuzzFeed picked up my above tweet and ran it as part of a listicle about Amazon Books. My issue with BuzzFeed's listicle was that they included my tweet as a "joke." I was dead serious. So this morning, the good people at Shelf Awareness gave my tweet a signal boost and I clarified that I absolutely meant what I said:
Serious offer: first person who showrooms Amazon Books gets a gift certificate to @ElliottBayBooks. Send pictures. https://t.co/h8e82wy8NA
— Paul Constant (@paulconstant) November 6, 2015
It didn't take long for someone to bite. Twitter user Allison Stieger visited Amazon Books this afternoon. She found a book that she was interested in — Alice Hoffman's The Marriage of Opposites:
Buying this book from @queenannebooks after showrooming at @amazon Books. @paulconstant pic.twitter.com/2tL4TpUrlx
— Allison Stieger (@allisonstieger) November 6, 2015
And then she bought it from the website of awesome local bookseller Queen Anne Book Company.
Done. Browsed at @amazon Books, bought from @queenannebooks @paulconstant pic.twitter.com/4TBouM2Bwh
— Allison Stieger (@allisonstieger) November 6, 2015
And then she picked it up at QABC:
Done! @queenannebookco @paulconstant pic.twitter.com/ZOeVT1Ah7N
— Allison Stieger (@allisonstieger) November 6, 2015
So there you have it! We made history today. Allison Stieger became the first person in the world to reverse-showroom Amazon Books, and she bought the world's first reverse-showroomed book at Queen Anne Book Company. Congratulations, Allison Stieger and Queen Anne Book Company! You've showroomed the showroomer. And Elliott Bay Book Company thanks you for it: