Bridging the Gap Between Indie Authors and Indie Bookstores

TL; DR: This whole post is about my indie author and bookstore guides which can be found here.

When I was in college, in a small East Texas town, I used to have a reoccurring dream, where I was looking for this perfect, little indie bookstore in downtown Nacogdoches. It was on main street, right in the center of the quaint small, downtown. It always disappeared before I could find it. Nacogdoches had one bookstore, not including the ones that sold textbooks to students. That was Hastings. Hastings was like if you combined a blockbuster, a Sam Goody, A Barnes and Nobel, a Starbucks, a Newbury Comics, and a Hot Topic in one single box store. Needless to say, they went out of business soon after I graduated college. But, this was the only place in town to buy novels. I spent a lot of time and money at Hasting’s in College.

In Houston, I was a known attendee at book events at Blue Willow. When I was 23, I took a vacation to Portland to visit Powells. Moving to Boston at 24 meant I had a veritable buffet of some of the best bookstores in the country. My dog was well known at the Booksmith for a while. I wrote parts of all of my books at Trident in Back Bay and part of The Lone Wolf Paradox at Lovestruck. Almost every book in my collection comes from an independent bookstore.

Before I even officially published my first novel, I knew I wanted to be in bookstores. A lot of people told me it was impossible. Even two years in, three books, awards nominations, critical acclaim, over 100 bookstores that have hosted me or brought in my books, and nearly 1,000 books sold on Ingramspark (who I distribute to bookstores), I am still often told to either give up my bookstore mission or just query my next book so that I can work within a more palatable system for bookstores. I have a few bookstores who would really prefer it actually. They like my books, but aren’t a fan of Ingram and the way they have to buy indie.

I am not going to continue to assess and process the query process here. I’ve ruminated enough times here, but the reality is, I failed with the deck stacked way in my favor in a way a lot of people don’t get. It was a decisive referendum on my willingness to wait to be picked. I have it on good authority that I am rarely picked first, so why torture myself with a continued improbable outcome of failing over and over again at a system most people fail at.

But I can self-publish really well. I am fortunate enough to have the time and money to dedicate to the process and I like writing. More so, I think I find myself frustrated with traditional publishing’s lack of risk taking. Their book buying has become increasingly more conservative both politically and more broadly. Authors of marginalized identities are often shut out of traditional publishing and when they do receive contracts, they don’t get the support they need. Which often means being shut out of bookstore placement.

When self-published authors talk about the lack of bookstore distribution, they are often referring to two different things. The first is physical distribution. There are technically a few ways to distribute to bookstores, but the most common method is through Ingramspark, a print on demand product that allows indie authors to distribute with comparable terms as trad publishers.

The second is marketing and credibility. Just being in the ingram catalog doesn’t sell books. Authors must actively market. And even when indie authors actively market, the biggest barrier to entry is dated stigma against self-published authors. In addition, large publishers provide a more convenient product as their books have already been vetted for marketability and quality, along with marketing budgets many indie authors can’t match.

The spread of AI slop unfortunately makes indie bookstores more hesitant, not less to embrace indie authors. I also think this is why indie authors need bookstores the most right now, Being able away from AI slop of Amazon is huge advantage of indie bookstores, and I believe the royalties are worth it.

Ultimately though, I believe indie authors and indie bookstores are great partners, and my goal is to help bridge the gap.

That’s why I have created resources for both indie authors and indie bookstores on working with indie authors.

Please find all my resources here.

M.J. Etkind is the author of Dishwasher Safe, The Witch of Wall Street, and The Lone Wolf Paradox.