Securing a Bold Future for America’s Oldest Independent Bookstore
The Andover Bookstore has been a fixture in this town since 1809. We are the oldest continually operating independent bookstore in the country. Over the past 214 years, we have worked hard to be the bookstore this community deserves. We have created jobs, brought authors to town, paid our fair share of taxes, given back to nonprofits and schools, and built a community.
A bookstore, of all businesses, is a kind of unicorn in this age of eReaders and Amazon. Around 70% of the books in the country are now bought and sold through Amazon. If you are reading here, you probably know that Amazon's specific business strategy is that books are its loss leader--Amazon undercharges and loses hundreds of thousands of dollars on books each year because...it can! It profits on everything else, and books are nothing more than devalued commodities.
At our bookstore, books are not just commodities: they are ideas, culture, free exchanges of speech, stories, history. Books are friends. And you are the friends this bookstore relies upon to keep us going far into the future. We are asking for your support. Please consider joining us in our drive to ensure a bold future for this old beauty of a bookstore! Here are some ways you can become a part of The Andover Bookstore's enduring legacy:
Become a Friend of the Andover Bookstore Sustaining Member!
Donate Online! (We welcome old school cash and checks, too!)
Purchase books through our online affiliate store, Bookshop.org!
Follow us on Facebook or Instagram!
Stop in and browse! Tell your friends and family far and wide about us! Lend us a kind word!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
The Hugo Family, Karen, Sarah, Chris, and the hundreds of great people who have worked in the bookstore over the past couple hundred years.