As reported today in Antiques Trade Gazette, The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ABA) has scrapped its sponsorship deal with Amazon-owned AbeBooks.
Now more than 300 booksellers across 24 countries have launched a temporary boycott of the site for a week starting today. Many of the book dealers have supported the protest on social media using the hashtag #bannedbooksellersweek.
So #bannedbooksellersweek starts tomorrrow in protest over @AbeBooks decision to ban booksellers from Hungary, the Czech Republic and other countries. As of this moment more than 300 booksellers with 1.2 million books are #notfoundonAbe https://t.co/F2jzknf1xU pic.twitter.com/GIABhCr8vj
— Eureka Books (@eurekabooks) November 5, 2018
AbeBooks announced it has pulled out of Czech Republic, Hungary, South Korea and Russia – countries with national associations that are members of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB).
An AbeBooks spokesman said: “We sincerely regret having to take this action but it is no longer viable for us to operate in these countries due to increasing costs and complexities.
“We continue to support sellers in all other 18 of the 22 countries with national associations that are members of ILAB.”
AbeBooks, launched in 1996 in British Columbia, Canada, and bought by Amazon in 2008, is the most influential online trading site for out-of-print books.
