How-It-Works-Final-Asset-10.24.13Can Amazon peacefully coexist with the corner bookstore? A new program announced by the Seattle company today will attempt to make it happen — letting independent bookstores sell the Kindle and get a cut of future profits from digital books that customers buy to read on the purchased device.

The program, called Amazon Source, will let booksellers purchase Amazon’s full lineup of e-readers, including the Kindle Fire HDX and Kindle Paperwhite at 6 percent less than Amazon’s suggested retail price. The bookstores will then earn a 10 percent commission on the sale of any book a customer buys through the Kindle Store for two years.

“We believe that retailers, online or offline, small or large, should be striving to offer customers what they want—and many customers want to read both digital and print books,” Russ Grandinetti, Vice President for Amazon Kindle said in a press release. “For many years, bookstores have successfully sold print books on Amazon—now Amazon Source extends this opportunity to digital. With Amazon Source, customers don’t have to choose between e-books and their favorite neighborhood bookstore—they can have both.”

Amazon is also offering other retailers the chance to buy its e-readers at a 9 percent discount, but those who do lose out on any commission.

The new program appears to be something of an olive branch to independent bookstores. Amazon’s model of offering books at bargain-basement prices to drive user acquisition is frequently faulted for the decline in the number of physical bookstores around the country, and the Kindle Source program is a way for booksellers to get a cut of the growing e-book market.

That said, it seems like local bookstores are still getting the raw end of the deal. Ultimately, customers are going to be buying more books from Amazon, and if they purchase their next Kindle from the online retail giant rather than their local bookstore, any revenue for the bookstore will dry up, while Amazon will continue to reap the benefits. Still, there’s an argument to be made that those same customers would be buying or already have an e-reader, and this is a way for booksellers to get revenue that they wouldn’t otherwise have received.

Here is the How it Works page for Amazon Source, including an FAQ.

(Photo via Amazon)

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