independent booksellers | Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Indie Freebie with the prompt: This topic encompasses a lot: your favorite indie bookstores, indie books, indie authors, indie publishers/presses, indie books on your to-read list, indie authors I read before they became traditionally published, etc.

My list today includes some favorite indie bookstores, plus a few ways to support indie booksellers.

First, my local faves:

1. The Love Potion Library: A new romance bookstore!

2. Borderland Books: Mainly sci-fi and fantasy, but also horror, mystery, and all sorts of cool and eclectic items for sale.

3. Green Apple Books: A San Francisco destination for new and used books (now with two locations).

4. Peninsula Books: A non-profit bookstore selling used books and hosting a variety of bookish events, supporting Peninsula Book Collective.

Next, a few other ways to shop and show support for indie bookstores and authors:

5. Poisoned Pen Bookstore (Arizona): For non-locals like me, a great source for virtual events and for ordering signed books copies, especially for Outlander books (but also plenty of others)

6. Bookshop.org: An online alternative to you-know-what, with purchases supporting the bookstore of your choice.

7. Libro.fm: Up to now, a great resource for audiobooks, but about to expand into ebooks as well. And like the previous item on my list, you can designate a bookstore to support via your purchases.

8. Independent Bookstore Day, sponsored by the American Booksellers Association: The last Saturday in April each year, this is a terrific event offering all sorts of opportunities to get out and enjoy indie bookstores across the country.

9. Check your favorite authors’ websites for preferred sellers! Many authors I follow have a designated local bookseller where we can order signed books (and sometimes fun extras too! It’s a nice way to support an indie bookseller while also getting access to a bookish treat for ourselves.

10. Gumroad: A place for creators to sell directly to consumers (rather than through the big A). I only know about this thanks to author Gail Carriger, who has several of her books and audiobooks available here.