Big Bearded Bookseller Update #142
What I’ve been up to the last week
I decided that apart from the review blog posts and the one each for the Independent Bookshop and Independent Publisher websites I was going to concentrate on working through all the saved posts, massive notes document, and browser bookmarks to get as many bookshops and publishers as I could on the various lists and maps…
You can see the result of this below, obviously not as many as I was trying for but I’ve cleared out so many lists and bookmark folders doing this and added a lot of headspace as I’ve not got all these hanging over me waiting to go onto the various blogs and websites seemingly forever.
I’ve also realised I’m no longer reading to enjoy the book I’m reading but reading for numbers, to beat last year’s score, to read all the newness, not really just for the sake of reading and it’s making me feel really negative about the whole blogging thing right now so I jumped on the chance to star reading picture books and middle grade for a while and that has really helped my headspace even more.
I know there isn’t as much as usual but my heart and head hasn’t been in the zone this week, let’s draw a line and see how the next week pans out.
Recently added bookshops
- Bell’s Books, California, USA
- The Book Bungalow, Utah, USA
- Booky Joint, California, USA
- Cervantes y Compañía, Madrid, Spain
- Damascus Drum, Hawick, Scotland
- Librería Berkana, Madrid, Spain
- Librería Pérgamo, Madrid, Spain
- Librería Reno, Madrid, Spain
- Linden Tree Children’s Books, California, USA
- Mac’s Fireweed Books, Yukon, Canada
- Moon and Back Bookstore, Massachusetts, USA
- Mr Chinnery’s Emporium, Redcar, England
- The New Romantics, Florida, USA
- Raven’s End Books, Winnipeg, Canada
- Serenity Booksellers, Romiley, England
- Serenity Booksellers, Stockport, England
- Spellbinder Books, California, USA
- Spellbound Bookstore, Florida, USA
- Thistle & Nightshade, Nevada, USA
- Tipos Infames, Madrid, Spain
- Writer’s Block Bookstore, Florida, USA
Recently added publishers
- none this week
Blog posts
- Mudfog Press (05/04/25)
- Desperate Literature, Madrid, Spain (05/04/25)
- Wolf Siren (05/04/25)
- Final Girl (07/04/25)
- Wild Garlic Risotto (08/04/25)
- Where is the Cat? (09/04/25)
- How to be a Viking (10/04/25)
- Basil Dreams Big (10/04/25)
Interview series
I run a series of interviews on the three main blogs I’ve got and am always on the lookout for more people to be involved, if you are interested why not look at the one related to you and get in touch.
- Author Interviews
- Blogger Interviews
- Bookshop Interviews
- Illustrator Interviews
- Publisher Interviews
- Translator Interviews
I’m also thinking of setting up some questions for another couple of categories in the book world; editors and agents but they may take some time to develop as I have to figure out what I personally would like to know about their roles and routes into those roles.
A reminder that a paid membership to this Ko-Fi starts at £1 a month.
This helps with lots of things but right now it would help with domain and hosting costs for the various projects.
If I could get 400 or so Ko-Fi and/or Substack members I could work on these projects more consistently; including travelling to visit, film, and write about independent bookshops and publishers!
It will always be free to read most of the posts on the blog and Ko-Fi but there may be member exclusive products/posts in the future, such as short stories from an old project that need a home.
My websites are:
http://www.bigbeardedbookseller.com
http://www.bigscreensmallscreen.com
http://www.indiepublishers.co.uk
If you want to keep up with me on a daily basis you can usually find me over on Bluesky and Instagram.
