#bookshop org

[phoenixyfriend]

BTW, Bookshop.org is doing free shipping, and 15% off some purchases, all weekend.

If you aren’t aware, Bookshop.org is an online bookstore that is meant to support independent bookstores; it allows you to pick which store the profits from your purchase go to help, and if you don’t pick one, the money goes into a shared pool that helps all independent bookstores! (This post does a great job explaining how it works.)

(Full disclosure, I do have an affiliate link but it means little.)

[meagankimberly]

Affiliate Marketing Journey

I tried affiliate marketing accounts in the past, but I didn’t engage with them enough to generate considerable income. Recently, I’ve been looking for ways to make a little extra income because, well, living is expensive. If you’ve visited my home page, you may have noticed my Bookshop page and my Mythologie Candles store. I plan to engage more frequently with these affiliate marketing accounts…

[aprilsteahouse]

Curious what I’ve been reading lately? You can check out one of my book lists on Bookshop.org and find out!

[archivlibrarianist]

This is huge: You can now buy ebooks from Bookshop.org, a website that helps boost sales to local independent bookshops!

To read an ebook purchased from Bookshop.org, you must use their own app (for a mobile device) or read it in a web browser. So, unfortunately, you can't (yet) send it to your ereader, but still, you're able to buy ebooks and also share a little bit of that profit with your local bookstore, if they're an affiliate!

[haghottie420]

Rust and Marty + Richard Siken’s Crush

[reelaround-deactivated05312024]

Lives and letters of Abelard and Heloise, edited by O.W. Wight

[nothwell]

Mark your calendars! Come to lala books on Saturday, Aug. 19th, to celebrate BOOKSTORE ROMANCE DAY with local romance authors, including Amber Cross, Elena Markem, Janet Raye Stevens, Rona Gofstein, Sara Marks, and yours truly! WHEN Saturday, August 19th WHAT 11am - Writing Romance Panel 2pm - Romance Trope Bingo 4pm - Author Readings & Book Signings WHERE lala books 189 Market St Lowell, MA Come say hi and meet fellow book lovers!

[mossyshadows]

The Stone Face by William Gardner Smith

Hadn’t heard of this book or author before so thank you for the rec!!!

[sentimental-boy]

started reading my first discworld novel today very excited

[ohcorny]

speaking of my book: buy my book! it comes out in a month!

Hunger's Bite releases 2/25, 2025!

A specter is haunting the Atlantic!

After growing up together on the luxurious SS Lark, Neeta Pandey and Emery Botwright are ready to start their lives. Emery wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and sail the Lark forever, while Neeta yearns to travel the world. But neither will have any future at all if the Lark’s new owner, Mr. Honeycutt, has his way.

Mr. Honeycutt . . . The first-class passengers adore him, while he makes the ship a nightmare for the crew. Twisted by unnatural appetites, the rich are actually transforming into something less than human, and their insatiable demands soon push the staff toward a—quite literal— burnout.

Something otherworldly is undeniably aboard the SS Lark, something horribly hungry. But it’s not Wick Farley: vampire, secret agent, and paranormal investigator. Alone and at sea, with only Neeta and Emery to help him, he must uncover the truth about Mr. Honeycutt. And fast—before a ravenous craving for power consumes them all. 

Pre-order it today!

[kerryweaverlesbian]

A Jelly-Fish

Visible, invisible,

a fluctuating charm

an amber-tinctured amethyst

inhabits it, your arm

approaches and it opens

and it closes; you had meant

to catch it and it quivers;

you abandon your intent

(by Marianne Moore)

[phoenixyfriend]

Bookshop.org is providing ebooks now, so I guess I need to update my affiliate storefront

(You can buy books that give me a wee bit of commission here.)

[ireadyabooks]

Pre-order ALL THE HIDDEN MONSTERS

A grisly murder. A detective warlock with a dangerous past. A girl out of her depth.

Cozy crime is dead. And so is Lucy Hague . . .

The first installment in an unputdownable YA supernatural crime trilogy!

Sage is an ordinary girl and a werewolf, moving between worlds, desperate to make sense of her life. And then her supernatural friend, Lucy, is found murdered in the human domain.

Now, Sage is determined to join the investigation, led by handsome but arrogant warlock, Oren Rinallis.

Sage may not be magical or immortal, but she knows right from wrong, and is sure that she can scent a killer like no other... unless she and Oren kill each other first...

With a crew so entertaining and unique—All the Hidden Monsters is funny, serious, scary—and you’ll never guess who did it. There’s a world below our own, but who is killing who in both of them?

PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY!

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Noble

Books-A-Million

Bookshop,org

Google Play

[britneyshakespeare]

anyway since i don't like to complain without giving actionable advice, here's are some other places i get books from that aren't so greedy about taking every last cent they can squeeze out of me!!!

(and these places may not be so accessible if you're outside of the united states, i'm sorry, i only know how to buy books in the country i live in; idk what to tell ya. hope someone else can help you if these sites don't work for you)

Thriftbooks. Thriftbooks is like the mama of discount book e-retailers and even if you don't use them, you've probably heard of them. I don't know how much the people reading this post buy secondhand books, online or not, but if I had to guess, the most loyal B&N customers are probably people who are not so experienced in secondhand book-shopping, because I know for myself once I was old enough to buy secondhand books online, I never turned back. And you only have to spend $15 for free standard shipping in the US, as opposed to 40 dollars for that same perk on B&N as a non-member. There's also an automatic rewards program that every so often you earn points to get a free book of value between 5 and 7 dollars; the value depends on what level of rewards you "earn" by being a frequent customer. They never take money from you to GIVE you these customer benefits. They incentivize frequent spending, but they don't take from you anything you won't willingly give them. Also, new books are almost always marked down from the B&N price too.

Better World Books. It's basically the same deal as Thriftbooks, rewards program and everything, but they also donate a book for every book sold and use their profits to raise money for literacy. I've also noticed that not-infrequently they sell the same secondhand books as Thriftbooks for a little less. Oh and it's also just $15 for free shipping from them, too.

AbeBooks. There's no standard get-this-much-money-for-free-shipping; it's essentially just an accumulation of independent booksellers. You can search for essentially anything on there and find it. It's a lot like eBay in that way. Because there are so many people selling on there, the prices for books that are directly comparable (same edition, same condition, etc) are pretty reasonable and competitive. I don't use this one as much as Thriftbooks but I can say from experience that if there's something I'm not finding anywhere else, I check AbeBooks. I've never not been able to find something on there. Sellers are located in more than 50 countries so shipping prices vary a lot; I believe they're automatically generated in most cases. Plus it's just a good way to support smaller businesses.

Oh, and this one might not seem like a big deal but eBay!!!! EBAY!!!!! There's always somebody trying to empty out some dead person's library on eBay!!! You can get some shocking deals on stuff that some person doesn't know how to get rid of, because no one seems to want this rare book nobody's ever heard of but you. BUT IF YOU'RE THE ONE LOOKING FOR THAT RARE BOOK!!! OH YES!!!! Oh and speaking of, THRIFTBOOKS AND BETTER WORLD BOOKS BOTH HAVE EBAY STORES OPEN AS WELL AND THEY HAVE AUTOMATIC FREE SHIPPING ON EVERYTHING!!! But naturally that doesn't go towards a rewards program on an account on their website if you don't make one. You decide what that's worth to you.

barnes and noble has been raising the prices of everything and further pushing for their premium membership option (which they raised the price of by 60 percent this year!) and then when they have big sales events, they're less than what they used to be.

last year at this time you could get one of their leather-bound book annex tomes for $12.50 (without a member discount) because of the 50 percent off all hardcover sales. but they raised the price of those tomes from 25 bucks to 30, and they decreased the sale from 50 percent off all hardcovers to 1/3rd off. so that same book that was $12.50 at last year's end-of-year sale is now 20 bucks. and that's supposed to be savings enough to induce me to walk into one of their stores this week?

i'm sorry but b&n has just gotten so greedy, even though their business has only been doing better and better in previous years. they do not have to be raising prices like they have been, and they can damn well afford to have the same savings events they used to. if you went to one of those hardcover sales a year or two ago, even if you lived in a less populated area like i do, you had never seen a b&n so busy in your life. things were flying off the shelves. they WERE making bank.

and as a company they've only been growing and growing (as much as the publishing industry has been, in recent years). but there are so many other ways to buy books. CHEAPER ways to buy books. MORE SUSTAINABLE ways to buy books. and since books and booksellers are doing really well right now, i don't see why barnes and noble is getting so greedy when they don't have to be. i dont like new shiny books that much. people buy books for the content, ultimately. sometimes we as consumers might make the choice that a new shiny book is worth paying a bit more for, but not that much. barnes and noble has just been demanding more and more of their customers' money for less and less benefit.

[tam--lin]

Books For People Who Liked Leverage and White Collar

I've always been a big non-fiction reader, and I'm particularly fond of frauds, scams, and white collar crime. Ever since I finished White Collar last year, I've been meaning to pull together a collection of related books. As you'll quickly learn if you dive into this list, the truth is often wilder than fiction. (A lot more FBI agents yelling FUCK YOU!! at each other across board room tables, for one thing.)

IMPORTANT! Please don't pirate! It hurts authors. Most of these books are available through your local library, including as e-books. You can help local bookstores by purchasing through bookshop dot org, or as audiobooks through libro dot fm.

Category #1: Stand Outs and All-Time Favorites

Bad Blood reads like a thriller, and I genuinely mean that. It's gripping, it's incredible reporting, it's just a jaw-dropping story. Theranos was one of the biggest corporate frauds in history, and Carreyrou masterfully details its rise and fall. Not to spoil what could be considered the book's big twist, but there's no one better to write it, either.

Empire of Pain is also masterful reporting by a well-regarded journalist, but it leans more family drama than thriller. This details the personal machinations that helped create the opioid crisis in America. [Leverage: Redemption 1x1, which IIRC was actually written before the Met removed the Sackler name from their exhibits. Also goes well paired with The Fall Of The House Of Usher.]

Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks is a collection of Radden Keefe's writing for The New Yorker. It explores wine crime (Leverage 5x13 and White Collar 1x12 directly draw from this), a passionate defense attorney, whistle blowers, hit men, and international organized crime. While I recommend the book, much of this content is available for free at newyorker dot com / contributors / patrick-radden-keefe (you can use paywallreader dot com to legally get around the paywall).

Number Go Up moves quickly and is full of fascinating characters and unexpected celebrity cameos. You've got your cringe rappers, your coke-on-a-yacht billionaires, your Harry Potter rationalist poly cult. Seriously, I wish I could read this again for the first time.

Category #2: Odd, "Cozy", Strange

The Feather Thief covers a unique crime by a 20-year-old obsessed with fly fishing.

The Art Thief tells the story of Stéphane Bréitwieser, the most prolific art thief of all time. He stole during the day, from museums full of people, again and again - over 200 times, in fact. He kept his treasures in his bedroom. A fascinating portrait of a strange criminal.

Category #3: Grab Bag

Including stuff that's more adjacent to the topic but still of interest, books I got part way through, and books that are still on my TBR.

Chickenshit Club I'm part way through and enjoying, Never Split the Difference is GREAT and includes lots of true hostage negotiating stories, Fancy Bear Goes Phishing I couldn't get into but that could be because I don't need two pages of text explaining what a string is. (I'm planning on giving it another go.)

Anansi's Gold and The Corporation are both on my TBR; Con Queen of Hollywood is a riveting con story for the first half but gets a little bogged down in biography in the second half.

The Confidence Game is on my TBR and is a classic of the genre, Molly's Game is one of my partner's favorite books, and The Gospel Of Wellness does a great job at exposing how scammy the entire wellness industry is.

Genuinely there are SO many more books I could have included, and I might do another post at some point. Some books were left off intentionally, because I didn't care for them or because another book did it better. Some books were left off simply because my white collar/fraud/cons TBR is extensive and I can't include everything! And some were left off simply because I don't know about them. I'm always looking for quality non-fiction - please do share any related recommendations in the notes.

[haydenwilliamsillustrations]

Introducing #TheHaydenWilliamsFashionActivityBook 🎨   I’m about to become a published author everyone!!!!!   I am so excited to announce that I have signed a book publishing deal with Octopus Books, & that my first ever publication, ‘The Hayden Williams Fashion Activity Book’ will be released this September. Here is an exclusive look at the cover (which I’m so proud of) & a preview of what to expect inside. A huge thank you to the legendary Naomi Campbell + all of the wonderful & iconic women that gave beautiful quotes & support for my first book.    The HW Fashion Activity book has a collection of glamorous, customisable fashion illustrations for you to colour in. There’s also paper dolls that you can spend hours creating your own fashion designs for, like I do! The illustrations are a combo of brand-new exclusive pieces created specifically for the book + some classics from my archives that have all been transformed into customisable artworks to colour in. The fashion stylings & designs take inspo from some of my favourite eras & aesthetics that have influenced me. A throwback to some of my earlier style of work, with vintage inspo from 50s old Hollywood glamour, combined with my love of pop culture & the more current fashion styles of today and beyond!    Creating this book was a lot of hard work, but also a lot of fun, & I truly put my all into it. I would’ve loved seeing something like this on shelves as a child, and now I’ve created it!! I truly hope this fashion activity book will spark lots of creativity & be so much fun for people to enjoy all over the world!! I can’t wait to see how you all customise these pieces. Links to preorder here https://linktr.ee/haydenwilliamsfashion

The Hayden Williams Fashion Activity book will be available at:

Barnes & Noble

Waterstones

Amazon

Browns Books

Bookshop. org

Foyles

WHSmith

Target

Walmart

Blackwell’s

Hive

Wordery