Dave Eggers has a new novel coming out in the fall called "The Every." But don't look for it at Amazon. He's refusing to deal with the giant online retailer.
"I don't like bullies," Eggers said. "Amazon has been kicking sand in the face of independent bookstores for decades now."
The hardcover of "The Every" will be published by McSweeney's, which Eggers founded in 1998. It will be released Oct. 5 and will be available only in independent bookstores and on McSweeney's website.
The novel follows a former forest ranger and tech skeptic, Delaney Wells, as she tries to take down a dangerous monopoly from the inside: a company called the Every, formed when the world's most powerful e-commerce site merged with the biggest social media company/search engine.
"One of the themes of the book is the power of monopolies to dictate our choices, so it seemed a good opportunity to push back a bit against the monopoly, Amazon, that currently rules the book world," Eggers said. "So we started looking into how feasible it would be to make the hardcover available only through independent bookstores. Turns out it is very, very hard."
He also acknowledged that the move likely will impact sales, although he isn't sure how much. In 2002, he also worked around Amazon, distributing the hardcover of "You Shall Know Our Velocity" directly through about 500 independent bookstores.
"But obviously," he said of Amazon, "their reach has dramatically increased since then."
Vintage, part of Penguin Random House, which holds the paperback rights to "The Every," said it was not in a position to skip around Amazon. But McSweeney's vowed that the hardcover never will appear there.
"We've gotten so used to letting the algorithms and the monopolies make some decisions for us," said Amanda Uhle, publisher of McSweeney's. "We're not going to break the whole system here, we're not trying to do that. But if we have opened a door for someone to walk outside and into the shop around the corner from them, and discover what's there, that's a win."
