Meet Abelujo, a free software solution for managing bookstores
Abelujo is free software for bookstores, published under the AGPLv3. It is a web application that helps booksellers register new stock and sell books. It has been used since 2020 by professional bookstores and associations in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Senegal, Spain, Uruguay, and maybe elsewhere!
It began as a passion project and is now the full-time activity of a small team based in France, lead by @vindarel, who is a Pythonista turned Lisper.
Craig Topham (craigt) got together with @vindarel (vindarel), the founder of Abelujo, to learn more about this useful program and its backstory.
craigt: What inspired you to create Abelujo?
vindarel: When I was a computer science student in France, I fell in love with a little bookstore called Antigone, a non-profit library, bookstore, and cafe run entirely by volunteers. Antigone had a great selection, with an emphasis on supporting small, independent publishers and authors and their ideas. You could find thousands of quality books there. They motivated me more than ever to help these kinds of places.
It turned out that the people in charge of Antigone were dreaming of some form of software to help them. They had been using a free software program on a GNU/Linux OS for the library, but only had a spreadsheet in LibreCalc for the bookstore. While the system in place had worked, Antigone needed more than a basic spreadsheet to more effectively run its bookstore. With a small group of more experienced software developers and volunteers, we interviewed the leaders of Antigone and wrote a program based on their specifications. A few years later, after a false start and a short break, the volunteers at Antigone were using the very first version of Abelujo. That was a good feeling. Since then, I have expanded the software with more feedback from professional bookstores which benefit from these improvements.
craigt: How are people using it?
vindarel: Abelujo is a web application that is used by bookstore operators to run and organize their shops. Users of the program complete many tasks every day, including: receiving orders, scanning new books into the system, selling books, editing bills, applying discounts, preparing orders, returning books to the supplier, and logging statistics. These are just a few things that can be done with Abelujo, and all of the functions feature lots of details! There is also a companion website that clients can use to browse stock (we released a free/libre version of this, too).
craigt: What features do you think really set Abelujo apart from competitors?
vindarel: To begin with, Abelujo is the only free software for bookstores. Yes, unbelievable to me, but this field was lacking in hacker activity. The other non-libre solutions, at least in France, are not web based, and do not run on a GNU/Linux OS. If a bookstore uses a nonfree program instead to operate, the purchase of such software would force it to run a Microsoft Windows machine.
If we look at the program, Abelujo sets itself apart thanks to its modern and easy-to-use interface, its intuitive search feature (you wouldn't believe how convoluted it can be in other software), its reception menu, how it allows users to add books to the list of commands from many places, etc. Things like that. We are proud of the quality of our interface which is possible through collecting clients' feedback, being a small team, and hosting the web software ourselves.
A few words about Enterprise Resource Planning (ERPs), the generic stock management systems that most bookstores use: We decided early on to not use one, to not depend on a specific vendor, and to be free to build the interface we wanted. Each bookstore has many specific business rules, so if we had chosen to use an ERP, we would have had to tweak it a lot.
craigt: What are the main differences in the book markets between countries?
vindarel: The biggest difference in book markets is the book price. In France, as in 14 other countries, a title is given a price which is used across the country and must be respected by all stores for two years. A giant store is required to sell a particular book at the same price as the tiniest bookstore. This makes it easier for everybody and helps independent bookstores survive.
Another difference is from where to get bibliographic data (title, author, ISBN, etc). Depending on how the market is structured, different actors will be data providers. In France, we connect to the main providers but need to find, contact, and work with another provider for every country. There are no good sources of data for books on the web, in general, neither free as in beer or as in freedom. Even scraping the web for data isn't enough for professionals. Thus, I would be happy to learn from a reader who their favorite books data provider is in their country.
craigt: What did you learn and what would you say to your past self?
vindarel: Go out in the real world to find software ideas. Also, what's trendy in the software industry might not be good for you!
craigt: Why did you choose the AGPLv3 as Abelujo's license?
vindarel: The choice was obvious for us. We were using free and libre software, working with free and libre software (Emacs <3), and we wanted our software to be available to other bookstores, no strings attached.
craigt: What are your plans for Abelujo?
vindarel: We want the next version of Abelujo to be simpler to install and to have a desktop version. We are switching technologies for this, from Python to Common Lisp. The language change also allows developers to work faster, with less tools, in a more advanced and more stable environment. All wins. If you are technically inclined, read more on lisp-journey.gitlab.io/pythonvslisp/ (website accessible with all Javascript blocked)
We are also developing connections to more services of the industry, and we plan to improve the handling of second-hand books. Then, we want to connect Abelujo to international online book selling platforms to offer more solutions to sell books online, in addition to the websites we build.