Tag: publishing

  • Broadening my Book-Buying Horizons

    Broadening my Book-Buying Horizons

    I like a lot of things about Amazon. It’s fast, generally reliable and it almost always has what I’m looking for. What I don’t like is that it means I never physically buy books in shops, especially independent ones. So for 2018, you might remember, I set a resolution to buy books from anywhere but Amazon and Waterstones – as a sort of cooperate-book-buying detox, you could say, a chance to broaden my book-buying horizons. This blog is something of a resolution update, where I’ll share where I’ve been buying books instead.

    Buying Online

    So despite the whole wanting to go out into, god forbid, real-life stores thing, there’s only one independent bookseller in my town and it’s for kids. While I tend to be in London at least once a week, I don’t always have time to explore the bookish stores around me so I needed to find at least one online alternative. A preliminary Google sent me to Wordery and Hive, both of which I have tried.

    Hive is cool because it makes a donation to an independent bookseller near you when you order something. For me this is great because I don’t have any reason to visit the children’s bookstore in town. With Hive I get to support a local store even though I won’t necessarily being shopping there. My issue with Hive is that more often than not, it doesn’t actually have what I’m looking for, be that new or old releases. It does, however, sell DVDs. So while it hasn’t become my online bookshop of choice, my DVD collection has continued to flourish despite my Amazon ban.

    When it comes to Wordery I am yet to find fault with it. The books are no more expensive than Amazon (often cheaper), their stock is amazing and their delivery is free and fast. What’s more, every order comes with a complimentary bookmark – that’s me sold. Given that it doesn’t sell everything else in the world like Amazon does, it’s impossible to fall down a random crap shopping spree, so it’s just books at good prices delivered fast – what’s not to love? I’ve also started trying to make a dent in the preliminary reading for my masters course and when it comes to academic books that I can’t get in the library or second hand, Wordery has had the best prices so far.

    Update July 2018: I now have an affiliate link for Wordery, so if you’re buying books there please use this link when making your way to the site! 

    Buying In-store

    As mentioned I’m not exactly spoilt for choice when it comes to local bookshops in my town, so boycotting Waterstones has been much harder than avoiding Amazon – not that I’ve given up! When in London I am spoilt for choice with independent, or at least alternative, booksellers. I have a list of shops I want to visit that I’m slowly making my way through but here’s where I’ve been so far.

    Burley Fisher Books is a shop I stumbled into for a book launch and found it rich in all my favourite authors as well as more quirky and unusual books that I might not have otherwise found. I was there for the launch of Tigerish Waters, and you know how I feel about that one! It’s up near Haggerston and Dalston which isn’t super easy for me to get to, but when work takes me in that direction again I’ll be sure to have a browse.

    Persephone Books is a publisher and bookseller near Holborn that reprints and sells otherwise forgotten fiction and non-fiction by (mostly) women writers from the mid-twentieth century in gorgeous grey editions. They’re not exactly cheap but they run a deal for multi-buys and it’s a really special way to collect and explore forgotten treasures of women’s literature.

    I’m still searching for an independent bookstore that crosses my regular path and has a mix of new finds and popular books I’m likely to be looking for. The stores I plan on hitting next include the London Review Bookshop (which apparently has cake!) and the Big Green Bookshop (always excellent on Twitter).

    When it comes to older and classic books I’ve been going to charity shops, of which there are an abundance of here. When I’m near Southbank I like to have a peruse at the book stalls under Waterloo Bridge, which will be in walking distance from my university next year… I smell trouble.

    I also visited Foyles for the first time, which I know is hardly independent but it was different at least. I deliberately headed for the Tottenham Court Road store because it has a Grant and Cutler concession – a foreign language bookstore. Speaking of…

    Buying Foreign Language Books

    My visit to the Grant and Cutler part of Foyles was good. It had what I needed and so much more, but it was pricey as hell. This has been my general experience of buying French books without Amazon.fr so far – expensive.

    llp
    A magical place!

    I mentioned months ago that I was having issues locating a specific edition of the French Potter books, even on French Amazon. I eventually found a solution by ordering online from a South Kensington based store called Librairie La Page. The whole delivery process ended up getting a bit muddled and the online store was a little pricey so I wasn’t feeling too hot on this one, until… Last week I happened to be in the area and made my way to the store in search of an Emile Zola book. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting to be greeted in French, but when I was I immediately knew Librairie La Page was a gooden. For five minutes I got to nose around French books, ask for help in French and overhear conversations in French – in West London! I can’t say I’m in West London very often but I will happily go out of my way to immerse myself in a little French culture from time to time. The store hosts readings and talks by Francophone authors, which I hope to attend soon. Definitely worth some time on the circle line and a couple of extra quid.

    Please let me know about any other indie bookstores you think I should check out, it’s been a lot of fun discovering new places so far but I feel like I’m only just dipping my toes in the water. 

  • Writing Resolutions 2018

    Writing Resolutions 2018

    I promised I was going to write this blog last year and never did, and I’ve tried to write this year’s a couple of times and failed at that too. Why am I hesitant? Because of what I want my resolutions to be and the repercussions of someone as stubborn as me ensuring that I follow through with them…

    Writing Resolutions for the year 2018

    The first one is nice and simple. To write a play. I only recently noticed that my favourite classes at university were often the drama-centric ones, and that a fairly large percentage of my reading habits are made up of plays. There’s obviously nothing like seeing a play dramatised on stage, but I take a surprising amount of pleasure in reading plays (probably because I perform them for myself like one-woman shows – I recently did this with Fleabag). So yes, in 2018 I would like to write a play. Long or short, tragedy or comedy – whatever, I’d just like to give it a go.

    The second and final resolution (less is more, right?) is to publish something. Whether it be this as-yet unwritten play, the novel I wrote a year or two ago (Project 27) or the novella I am in the process of finishing, I want to publish something. The latter novella is something I’ve been meaning to mention. I accidentally wrote it in November and have been tweaking it since. Dare I say I think it’s actually alright? Anyway, since I keep jabbering on about the fact I have now written a couple of things, my family and friends are getting (understandably?) frustrated that I won’t let them read any of it.

    Half of my feelings on this are “it’s my novel, piss off,” which is obviously a very mature and diplomatic response. A quarter of them are “I will share it but it doesn’t feel like time yet,” which translates as “no literary agents or publishers have taken the bait yet and I’m not ready to self-publish”. And the final quarter of them are “well go on then, what’s the worst that can happen?” At which point I begin to imagine all the possible horrible things that could and might happen in the event that I publish either of these fictional works.

    But these are all issues I need to get over and I think 2018 might be the year to get over them. If no publishers or agents have expressed any interest in the works by the end of the year and I still think they’re good, then I will seriously consider self-publication (talking myself out of it already aren’t I?) I’m hoping my unyielding fear of doing it myself will motivate me to really sell one or both of the books to the winning agent or publisher this year and that something might come of all my time cooped up with this computer. For Christmas I received the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook 2018, which I hope will help with my search for my agent OTP.

    As gratifying it is for me to know I’ve written fiction that I think is good and being chuffed with what I’ve achieved, it doesn’t make me any money, it doesn’t shut my family up, and it doesn’t satisfy a huge part of my motivation to write – to be read.

    On that rational note… Happy New Year, again! I hope 2018 is going well for you all. Let me know what blogs you’re interested in seeing this year. More or less #Periodically, for example? Head over to my Instagram to see what I’m currently reading and what other books I got for Christmas.

    IMG_0076
    Winston was reluctant to help me get a thumbnail for the blog