Hay booksellers protest to ban Kindle
By Jonathan O'Connor on Thursday, May 31, 2012
I came across this protest stunt in a local newspaper, the Hereford Times 2 hours ago. It has just been picked up by the Mail Online and will probably snowball.
The Hay-on-Wye literary festival may be overshadowed by a protest organised by a number of book shop owners. They blame the Kindle, Amazon’s book reading device, for the closure of six independent book shops.
One of the protesters, called Derek Addyman, has built a rather bizarre scene in his book shop, depicting a gravestone with one of the e-book readers. The protesters are threatening to boycott the festival if the e-readers are seen at any of the venues hosting the event.
It remains to be seen how this boycott will be enforced. But it is a great example how you can achieve big publicity with a protest, a few well thought-out photos and the help of a regional newspaper.