Alternatives to Amazon Services

Contents:
Alternative Online Retailers
Audible Alternatives
Goodreads Alternatives
Kindle Alternatives
Publishing Alternatives
Streaming / Love Film Alternatives

If you’re looking for alternative booksellers check out this dedicated page.

Alternative Online Retailers

There are plenty of online retailers with offers featured on this website so do have a browse to see if there are any active discount codes. Below is a list of some of these online stores:

Veo. – Earth-friendly marketplace – a place for ethical vendors to sell, and a place for conscious consumers to shop.

Big Green Smile – A range of organic lifestyle products including natural and organic bath and skincare; and household products.

&Keep – Plastic-free shop who believe in goods for the home & you that are mindfully sourced, eco-friendly & sustainable.

Oxfam Online Shop – Tens of thousands of both pre-loved and new products with all purchases helping fight poverty and injustice around the world.

Ethical Superstore – Feel good choices with thousands of Fairtrade, organic & eco-friendly gifts, gadgets & healthy groceries.

For electronics Richer Sounds are the most ethical option according to Ethical Consumer research.

Audible Alternatives

Check out these alternatives to Audible:

xigxag – Ethical Consumer Best Buy and B-Corp certified, the xigxag audiobook app puts listeners at the heart of everything it does: great prices (encouraging more reading with prices going down the more books you read), no subscriptions and a fantastic user experience. You can receive a free audiobook when you purchase your first using my xigxag voucher code.

Downpour – A constantly growing selection of tens of thousands of audiobook titles and DRM-free audiobook downloads.

Kobo – One free audiobook each month and your collection is yours forever, even if you cancel.

Libby – Thousands of audiobooks, curated by your own library, wherever you are.

LibriVox – LibriVox audiobooks are read by volunteers from all over the world and are free for anyone to listen to.

Libro.fm – Support your local bookshop with every purchase and choose from hundreds of thousands of audiobooks.

Spiracle – An independent, specialist audiobook platform describing themselves as, ‘The friend who pulls out a book and says, “No, really, I know you’ll love this!”‘. They celebrate ambitious and original books from the UK’s independent presses and elsewhere.

Goodreads Alternatives

BookWyrm – A social network for tracking your reading, talking about books, writing reviews, and discovering what to read next. Ad-free, anti-corporate, and federated, you can follow and interact with users on other BookWyrm instances, and on federated services like Mastodon.

The StoryGraph – As an alternative reading list platform to GoodReads (Amazon) try The StoryGraph for tracking your reading and choosing your next book.

Open Library – Not only can you use them like Goodreads, you can import your Goodreads data AND they lend ebooks worldwide for free with over two million free ebooks available.

Litalist – They aim to aggregate word of mouth in the form of a platform for book recommendations and then enable people to buy them in a local, ethical way. Litalist have created a positive community where the possibility of toxicity is deliberately reduced. They believe that the author and the retailer should be paid properly and so only take an 8% commission (plus VAT) where as other bookselling platforms take up to 35%.

On top of my three recommendations above Kevin at Libreture has created a much more comprehensive list of Goodreads alternatives.

Kindle Alternatives

For an alternative eReader to Kindle, Bookeen score 9 out of 20 in Ethical Consumer Magazine while Kobo score 5.5. For context Kindle gets 0. My Ethical Bookseller Search Tool includes results for ebooks.

Libby is a fantastic app which allows you to borrow and read ebooks and listen to audiobooks from your local public library for free, supporting your library in the process. You just need a valid library card to use it. It is powered by OverDrive, a certified B-Corporation.

Smashwords is the world’s largest ebook publishing and distribution platform for indie authors.

The Bookeen website is mostly in French so it’ll help if you can speak French to order. Otherwise use a translation tool. The Bookeen Diva eReader does have an English dictionary integrated as well as a manual in English available. The Bookeen Diva is described as instinctive as a tablet but so much more comfortable for the reader.

Kobo’s award-winning eReaders are comfortable, convenient, designed especially for booklovers, and their range includes two waterproof models.

Book Publishing Alternatives

Unbound is a crowdfunding publisher. Authors can pitch an idea, rally their crowd in to supporting it and get it out in to the real world.

Troubador is an independent UK publisher which also offers a self-publishing service through Matador.

Love Film Alternatives / Films, DVDs & Online Streaming

Other ethical places to shop for films & DVDs online include:

Hive DVDs

Oxfam 2nd hand Music, Film & Video Games

Dogwoof

Cinema Paradiso are an independent UK on-line DVD and Blu-ray rental service with a catalogue of over 75,000 titles. They are the most ethical alternative to LoveFilm according to Ethical Consumer magazine (who give Cinema Paradiso a 60% ethical score compared to love film’s 5%). Cinema Paradiso are a long established independent British company who pay all of their UK tax! Sign up today and try it free of charge.

Go to the main Amazon Alternatives Page