The best place to buy books
I sometimes get asked by friends, family, and very kind readers where they should be buying or preordering my books. “What helps you the most? Where do you recommend I shop?”
I’m going to try to answer that today, which happens to be Small Business Saturday in the US.
Short answer: every purchase is a good purchase for me. (That includes copies purchased by libraries, so do not feel guilty for using your local library.) Whatever will get you to commit to buying/preordering right now (instead of putting it off and possibly forgetting) helps me immensely.
Long answer: you should shop at your local, queer-friendly independent bookstore.
Not only do indie shops often provide tons of free programming and support for the community, but they have been in my corner since the very start of my career. When some big box stores that shall remain nameless decided not to carry my books anymore (cowards), indies never wavered. Not to brag (no, wait, I will!) but I have been named an Indie Next pick three times in a row. A huge percentage of my sales are from indie stores because their booksellers are dedicated to actually talking to their customers, and wouldn’t you know it? Those customers often wanna read about queer people kissing. Patronizing these kinds of shops means supporting businesses who actually sell books, all kinds of books, and that’s important.
So if you have a good independent shop near you, I personally think you should buy and preorder from them. Many indies now have robust websites, and if you can’t order/preorder online, you can always pick up the phone. I promise the staff are probably bookish introverts, too, who will make the sale as painless as possible.
Don’t have a quality indie bookstore near you? You can preorder a signed copy of any of my books from my local indie and they’ll ship it to you. They’ll even take preorders for signed copies of A Gentleman’s Gentleman.
My next-best suggestion is to order from my Bookshop.org page. I receive a small commission for everything bought through my page (even books I don’t feature!) so if you’ve ever wanted to buy me 1/5th of a coffee, that’s an option.
Now, is shopping going to fix the world or defeat the horrors? Nah, but unfortunately I do need to make enough money to survive if I want to keep writing, so I’m sharing this info with you in case you’re interested.
Onto another type of screed:
I have heard from many author friends in the past few weeks who say that mentioning What Is Happening In America in their newsletters often results in a huge numbers of unsubscribes. I get it; this shit can feel so overwhelming sometimes that you just want to crawl in a hole. But you all are here because you believe in queer and trans stories and I hope a little fascism won’t ever change that.
Things look pretty bleak, but honestly, that’s been kind of standard for trans people and many others in this country. In the coming years, it may become more difficult for me to share stories with you. Some institutions and corporations will defer to an administration that aims to ban LGBTQ+ material. Some have already begun the process (cowards).
If you are looking for ways to help, please check out the social corner links below. Paramount in all this is the fact that the most vulnerable among us need help right now, so if you are looking to donate to a charity, please consider G.L.I.T.S. And above all, take care of yourself so that you can continue taking care of others. We need you here with us.
Fuck it, right? Deep breath. Eyes up. Let’s get to work.
Social corner:
Please absorb this essay from Maya Deane & Kai Cheng Thom on how to read trans fem work
A petition for cis women against bathroom bans
The Trans Literature Preservation Project: A Practical Guide to Resisting Censorship
Thanks for reading!
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