Thank you! Fortunately they're a rare exception.
Most of our customers are a delight, and we love the community we're building in our little store. ❤️
12.04.2025 12:33
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Thank you! Fortunately they're a rare exception.
Most of our customers are a delight, and we love the community we're building in our little store. ❤️
I swear it's the nicest thing that they do all day.
A low bar, but they meet it. ❤️
If I hadn't already told them not to contact us because they're harassing us at this point I would have been much more clever in my response.
"Thank you for helping keep this shop a safe space for our Allen by keeping yourself out of it."
I need an anger translator for that statement tbh.
But the one to talk about today is from a person that was big mad that we told them it's not ok to use slurs on the internet.
Talking about how they've never been to our store and now they never will.
Oh no.
No. 😐
Stop. 😐
Don't. 😐
Come back. 😐😐🤭
We've gotten two one star reviews on Google.
One clearly from a bot talking about how they waited forever before getting their food & tables were dirty.
Ma'am this is a bookstore. Please don't use book displays as dining tables.
Photo of the window display at our bookstore. Full of books and topics, much like the floor of the Senate yesterday.
The same bookshelf as the previous image. The bookshelf shows scattered book displays that are empty, with the exception of one book. The title is "On Tyranny".
A close up of the book "On Tyranny" on an otherwise empty book display.
The Senate yesterday vs the Senate today.
We support Senator Booker's speech.
Wait til you see the Golden Girls series coming in April!
Shows the front cover of Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer, an Obama Biden Mystery
Shows the back cover of Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer, an Obama Biden Mystery
That moment when someone donates a used book to the store that is absolute treasure and you have to choose between selling it and keeping it for yourself...
On the backend of the bookselling industry the Onyx Storm release is once again a big hot mess already.
We're just as nervous/stressed as you are because we're seeing orders cut, delayed or arriving damaged.
Please be gentle with whatever local bookseller you've chosen. ❤️
The book "Give Way to Night" is pictured. Backdrop is a cozy bookstore in upstate NY.
The Marvel comic "Death of X" is pictured. Backdrop is a cozy bookstore in upstate NY.
The DC Comic "Green Lanterns vol 1 Rage Planet" is pictured. Backdrop is a cozy bookstore in upstate NY.
The Marvel comic "Ms. Marvel" is pictured. Backdrop is a cozy bookstore in upstate NY.
Updating photos on our website rn. I'm particularly proud of how much better these covers look.
Thank you for allowing me to participate in the conversation, I really appreciate that I wasn't immediately shut down for disagreeing with parts of the article. ❤️
Some of this is a result of things I've learned more recently, and I'm always looking to continue to learn.
Thank you for allowing me to participate in the conversation and hearing me out!
/End
Until other platforms are able to truly compete with KU I wouldn't pressure someone to cancel it. I only try to make sure that other retailers like Kobo are included in the conversation as additional options.
5/
I'm starting to pull together resources for indie bookstores to make ordering diverse Indie Authors easier.
We also regularly order directly from Indie Authors, and allow them to ship us author copies directly from whatever supplier makes the most sense for them.
4/
We have a policy against returning books by indie authors even when returns are on.
I'm always going off about it in conversations with other booksellers to raise awareness of the fees because many don't realize that authors can go into the negative at Ingram, let alone how fast it happens.
3/
On my end of things I'm constantly working to advocate for authors. I regularly look for diverse books for my shelves, and I put a special focus on finding Indie Authors that I can stock, including often going directly to the author.
We do not require returns to be turned on on Ingram.
2/
I apologize if anything I said came off as assuming that you weren't doing your best with the resources you have.
Disagreeing with ideas/how they are framed can sound like criticizing people, and while I do my best to avoid that, I know I always need to work on doing better.
1/
Thank you for being open to critical feedback!
I know that's not easy, and I definitely respect the grace in your responses.
Rereading your article, I'm realizing that you did have a line about requesting from the library. Sorry about the oversight on that suggestion.
A line about requesting LGBT books from bookstores too is what I should have written instead.
I understand that a lot of what you're responding to with this article is a concern about Amazon boycotts.
But part of the strategy needs to be about making the prospect of Amazon losing some market share less scary for indie authors.
That means building more community.
/End
Maybe include something in the positive section about finding LGBT authors where they are, including places like LGBT owned bookstores, or Kobo or Google or Amazon.
Maybe add a line about requesting LGBT books at the library if safe to do so.
8/
If the point you were trying to make was "don't use the existence of other retailers to shame people still on Amazon"...
Maybe those are the words you should use instead?
Maybe don't discourage the growth of the other places? All the eggs in one basket is a bad plan.
7/
You're right that other places can't be the whole solution right now.
But only mentioning options besides Amazon to tell people not to suggest them and then going into hyper specific details about what you don't like about some bookstores is counter productive.
6/
So telling people not to talk about them as a part of the solution exacerbates the issues you call out.
If bookstores/libraries don't see demand for these books they won't stock them. If readers aren't on other platforms *too* authors will have to continue to take the worse terms Amazon offers.
5/
Libraries are funded based on member activity levels. Bookstores stock largely based on perceived demand.
Other platforms (eg, Kobo) pay less not because their terms are worse than Amazon, but because they have less traffic.
Their terms are actually generally slightly better per sale.
4/
We should be encouraging people to find authors where they can, instead of helping Amazon in their goal to shut down libraries & other book retailers.
Telling people not to talk about other avenues for finding books by LGBT Authors, & ignoring that those other places exist will shut them down.
3/
Indie authors and LGBT Authors also still exist on other platforms.
"Ignoring" those authors isn't any better than "ignoring" the authors in Kindle Unlimited.
It's not a bad thing if people talk about those other platforms. We need to raise awareness of them too.
2/
The point in the article is written more broadly than that, as though suggesting libraries or indie bookstore to others is harmful.
The entire article reads very much as a pro Amazon piece.
While I understand that a number of authors prefer Amazon for sales...
1/
Hey authors, don’t forget that if you use bookshop.org instead of that great big place, you will be helping out indie bookshops - very few of who make so much they are dabbling with building rockets - you can even choose which bookshop
uk.bookshop.org/shop/booksho...
Would love to be added! We're an indie bookstore in Waterford New York.
Single location, member of the ABA.