New app links indie bookstores to buyers

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos might be no match for two Big Apple poets.

It’s been a tough year for the city’s independent book sellers — good-bye Shakespeare & Co. and Rizzoli Bookstore — but CityShelf aims to give them a boost.

“Amazon poses a real challenge,” said Ben Purkert, a New Yorker-published poet and CityShelf co-founder. “It’s hard to compete on price and it’s hard to compete on convenience.”

Amazon is by far the largest bookseller in the world, controlling about 41 percent of all new book unit sales and 67 percent of the e-book market, according to Codex Group.

CityShelf, a Web site and app started earlier this month, lets readers search for a book at eight local shops, including Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, the Strand in Manhattan and Astoria Bookshop in Queens.

The “passion project” started eight months ago when Purkert decided to unite the city’s bookstores in the face of Amazon’s dominance.

“I was doubly upset because I felt like I was contributing, like I was part of the problem,” Purkert said at a launch party at New York University earlier this month. “Even though I love shopping locally and going to local bookstores, it’s just so much more convenient to go through Amazon.”

He partnered with Eric Weinstein, a fellow poetry classmate from NYU’s graduate writing program.

Since launching, CityShelf has seen a spike in traffic, Purkert said.

CityShelf is looking to expand to other cities and to team with bookstores that don’t have online inventory.

The startup is meeting with the American Booksellers Association next month about expanding the network, according to Purkert.