Support indie presses: Asses and Geeks

Alison Tyler wrote a neat post today in support of indie publishers, reminding us that authors benefit directly when we choose to spend our book money on the small guys.

Apparently, Smart Ass is currently this month’s topseller at Pretty Things Press. Huzzah! Left is a pic of me reading from my story in Smart Ass at Eroticon in London. (The book in my hands is a print copy of our three ass anthologies from PTP). As far as I know, this is the only picture of my legs on the internet. This is likely to remain the case. Consider it a collector’s item.

But AT’s post struck a particular chord today because just a few days ago, Amazon declined to offer for sale Geek Love, the book born of Shanna Germain’s amazing Kickstarter project, claiming it breached some hazy, arbitrary content guidelines of theirs and they were Mighty Powerful and could do whatever they wanted.

Days later, Amazon relented, but by that point, Shanna was all “Fuck you, Lord Amazon! I’m supporting the small guys who support us!” And so now, Geek Love is available as an ebook via Drive Thru Fiction. Setting up an account takes about 2 seconds and if you’re geeky, you won’t even blink at that.

Hardback copies of Geek Love will be available via the same retailer at some future point. I have a story in Geek Love. The anthology received a great review on Erotica Revealed this week.

If you’re anything like me, you can’t afford to buy all your books from indie publishers and booksellers. And as an author, I benefit from Amazon’s huge reach, and also from publishers with money to spend on marketing. But I mix up my book purchases from the big guns with purchases from the smaller presses and outlets. After all, interesting stuff happens on the margins!

So please, think big by thinking small! Get geeky, get assy, get indie when you can!