How does that work? Independent in a physical sense, generally translates to 1 or very few outlets. Online is only ever going to be 1 outlet. Plus none of the independent bookstore features seem amenable to translating to the internet.
So is it ownership structure? 'vibe'?
> How does that work?
Small: They're not operating at Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Amazon, or any other major book retailer level. Measuring by revenue seems reasonable in this sense. Pick arbitrary numbers to define small/medium/large.
Independent: They're not affiliated with any one single publisher.
Independent suggests more than just being independent, and very little of that seems to be compatible with being an internet company (local, passionate knowledgeable owner, community hub).
If some one told me about a small independent record store, or small independent coffee shop, I would have certain expectations.
Platform independent seems reasonable given the context though.
Independent in this context includes many different things, most of which I'm not sure are particularly relevant to an online business.
You don't get a knowledgeable enthusiastic shop owner to talk to, it isn't a gathering space, it doesn't keep money in the local community.
So I'm asking what independent actually means in an online context.
We also offer DRM-free PDFs that are correctly formatted, unlike what you'd get from the Google Bookstore (they convert from ePub). This is particularly important for publishers like O'Reilly who no longer sell copies outside a subscription from their site. Some authors help us out a lot by linking to us directly: https://dataintensive.net/buy.html
It's a slow process getting publishers on board, but more are moving across to DRM-free or social DRM (watermarking) which is a step in the right direction.