From Alaska: Old Harbor Books, the 250th indie bookseller of Google eBooks

(Cross-posted from the Google Books Blog)


From time to time we invite guests to post about topics of interest and we’re pleased to have Don Muller join us from Old Harbor Books. Don is a co-founder of Old Harbor Books, an independent bookstore where he has worked for 35 years in Sitka, Alaska. Through our partnership with the American Booksellers Association and its IndieCommerce e-commerce platform for booksellers, Old Harbor Books is now able to sell Google eBooks from its website. In this post, Don talks about the significance of this milestone to his bookstore and—most importantly—his customers. - Ed.

Based in Sitka, Alaska, Old Harbor Books was opened 35 years ago last week by a group of devoted book lovers including myself. Old Harbor is an independent bookstore specializing in Alaskana, Native American and Alaska Native, children's, ecology, travel, natural history, philosophy and, of course, nautical books. And starting today, we also sell Google eBooks on our website. In fact, we’re the 250th independent bookseller to start selling Google eBooks since the service launched last December.

In a town with a population of less than 9,000, we’re proud to provide personal service to the readers and explorers who visit our store. We wanted to give our customers a way to buy books from us in whatever format they want—including ebooks. So whether you want to read books on your computer, tablet, smartphone or e-reader, you can now choose from hundreds of thousands of Google eBooks titles we offer.

Some of my current favorites are are Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist by Stephen Batchelor. Searching by title, subject or author in our online ebookstore, you can find just about anything you’re looking for—and you can buy from us no matter where in the U.S. you are.

Old Harbor Books customer and manager with me in the middle

We hope you’ll shop for Google eBooks in our newly expanded online bookstore—the 250th of its kind. If you do happen to live near Sitka, the first 40 visitors to Old Harbor Books at 201 Lincoln Street today get free Google eBooks T-shirts. We’ll also show you how to sign up for an online account and get started with ebook shopping. If you can’t make it to the store, this funny video made by fellow independent bookstore Green Apple Books in San Francisco, Calif. does a great job explaining how to buy Google eBooks from the independent bookseller of your choice and read them on gadgets you already own.

We’re deeply grateful to Google eBooks and the American Booksellers Association for making this possible by connecting our IndieCommerce-powered website to the Google eBooks platform that lets us focus on merchandising books, rather than building the technology on our own.

Posted by Don Muller, Co-founder, Old Harbor Books