Friday Question #19: How are you supporting your local indie bookstore?

Happy Friday, BookishFirst Readers! We hope you’re all safe and healthy. It’s been a long week for everyone and we want you to know that we’re here for you.

This week’s question is inspired by the current situation, in which many independent bookstores have had to close their doors due to COVID-19. Independent bookstores are so crucial to local communities and the publishing industry, so we want to show our love for them now more than ever.

How are you supporting your local indie bookstore at this time?

Here are some of our tips:

  • Stay connected through social media and newsletters
  • Signal boost any of their important posts
  • Leave a positive review of their store on Yelp
  • Make a book purchase (if they’re still shipping), buy a gift card, pre-order an anticipated read
  • Sign up for Libro.fm, an audiobook retailer, that allows you to support your local indie
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Seeing so many bookstores close has made me really sad. I’ve made purchases from two already. I ordered a surprise box of romance novels from Love’s Sweet Arrow and a care package from The Ripped Bodice. As a romance reader, I care greatly about these two indies since they are the only two romance specific bookstores in the U.S.

These stores aren’t local to my community so I plan to buy from Word Books, Books of Wonder, and The Strand Bookstore within the next couple of weeks. Separately, I know many indie comic bookstores are being impacted in the same way so I’ll be compiling a list of graphic novels I’ve been meaning to read.

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I definitely follow my local Indie bookstore on all of their social media platforms. I often tag them in pictures when I post books that I got from their store. They are actually in the middle of moving so they were already closed for the month, so thankfully they haven’t been effected. They are having a quick moving sale this weekend and I do plan on going tomorrow. I’m getting over a cold, so my fiance said I should wait until at least tomorrow to make sure my fever is 100% gone.

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I signed up for Libro.fm and am already listening to an audiobook! I’m planning on purchasing a few books from one of my local indies, Politics and Prose, and attending a few of their virtual events, via P&P Live! I’m thinking about also purchasing a game or puzzle, which I’ll also try to do through an indie directly or via Bookshop.org.

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Well, before we sheltered-in-place, but I went on a buying spree at four different local indies and ended up with 10-12 books, this is on top of my already growing stack. I’m going to try and read as many of those as possible so that I can go buy more books from indie bookstores as long as they are shipping.

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I plan to pre-order The Happily Ever After Playlist (an anticipated April release) from an Indie Bookstore. I also ordered a surprise box from Love’s Sweet Arrow. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I ordered a care package from Ripped Bodice and I also ordered a gift card from my local book store because they are unsure about online orders right now and also aren’t going into the store at the moment to fill orders because of the stay-in-place order. So I’ll have a gift card to use when they are back up and running! Money now for them, books for me later! :smile: They did say they have a way to order ebooks through them that I think I might look into as well.

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I am helping by promoting my favorite indie bookstore on social media and boosting others when I see them.

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I have already ordered 2 books from my favorite Indie bookstore. They need our help.

My absolute favorite bookstore is More Than Words, which is a nonprofit run by at-risk youth. They won a small business award from eBay a year or two ago, and provide robust mentoring and support programs for all the teenagers involved. Not to mention their bookstore is amazing and their prices are fantastic.

I bought so many books last week from them online that they had to break them into two packages to ship! :joy: I definitely recommend it to anyone as they are still shipping order around the world and are so worth supporting. Plus… books! :smiley:

A lot of my favorite bookstores moved their operations online. Here’s a list I compiled of some indie bookstores that offer online shopping and/or virtual author events:

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Having a really hard time finding any and i live in LA! The few I visited before the pandemic were underwhelming because sure, they won’t have everything, but these literally had NOTHING id ever heard of, were impossible to find as they were so messy and the staff were incredibly rude. As in they refused to answer any questions, seriously none. Does anyone have any recs for someone living near Los Angeles?

**[quote=“bookish_tarah, post:4, topic:1668, full:true”]
I signed up for Libro.fm and am already listening to an audiobook! I’m planning on purchasing a few books from one of my local indies, Politics and Prose, and attending a few of their virtual events, via P&P Live! I’m thinking about also purchasing a game or puzzle, which I’ll also try to do through an indie directly or via Bookshop.org.
[/quote]

I love games and puzzles! Can you share where/what youre fav indie stores are by chance??

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I have never shopped at a indie book store

Do not have any indie book stores near me, but have lots of used book stores.