Wait For It by Eric Beetner

 What would you do differently if you were starting your career in today’s publishing landscape?

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. My first book came out in 2009. Far enough away to earn me veteran status, but still feels like yesterday. Since then, I’ve published 35 works and over 120 short stories.

Step one would be to not publish as much.

That first novel I still believe in, but we never should have published it then. That one was co-written with another author who invited me to collaborate with them and I did just to keep writing and I thought it would be fun. It was. We wrote four books together, three of which got published. But we fell into that trap of being young (ish) and eager and we took the first offer given to us with a tiny indie press.

Back then it was so amazing that anyone would want to put out a book, and we didn’t have agents then, that it seemed foolish not to take advantage of the offer. I learned quickly that a bad offer is worse than no offer at all.

What started for me then, I believe, was a growing list of books with zero publicity leading to poor sales numbers which adds up over time and makes me a hard sell to bigger publishers.

The hard lesson learned over the first decade of publishing is that it is not a meritocracy. I believed that hard work would pay off. I wrote more than most people, I organized readings, I volunteered with organizations, I worked hard to promote other authors. I gathered an impressive list of accolades. I finally got that agent. I made friends with many authors both big and small. None of it mattered in the face of small presses unwilling to invest in the books beyond crossed fingers and a bi-monthly social media post.

I wrote whatever people wanted when they came calling. I wrote under other names, in other people’s series. I wrote short, novella-length when powers that be convinced many people that short form was the future (it was not). I listened to friends and colleagues when they told me of new ventures in ebook publishing that would catch fire (they did not).

I wrote shorts for anyone who would take them. I wrote novels and watched as small presses died one after another like it was my own words infecting them with a fatal disease. I’ve had seven publishers go out of business while publishing my work. You read that right - seven. I’ve had a few novels orphaned multiple times. I’ve been kicked in the teeth again and again by this business and I wish I’d had more patience to let the process play out at the start. Do the querying, find an agent, wait for that first deal to be the best deal because you're only a debut author once. 

I guess I’m impatient by nature. I’m prolific because I love writing. I learned the business doesn’t reward that. It’s too much for readers to keep up with at some point. I needed to slow down and not take every offer I was handed.

The temptation was that people were responding to the work. Someone saying they like your book and want to put it out is intoxicating. And it was just sitting there on my hard drive. Why not release it?

I’ve slowed down now. I try to let the process play out. My agent right now has 4 finished manuscripts and I have several that have fallen out of print that I’m waiting on getting back out there because I want to do the books justice this time. I’d hate to think poor publishing has killed some of my best writing. But I can wait.

Through it all I’ve kept on typing and somehow not given up. When I look back at the writers I was coming up with around the time my first novel was published, very few are still in the game. Other bad deals, poor sales, the frustrations of the business all got to them and they faded away. Even writers who had big 5 deals and sold tens of thousands of books eventually hit a wall and saw decline sales, dropped contracts and eventually walked away from ti all. My plan has always been to relentlessly stick around until I wear down readers by just being a constant presence and make them stop fighting it and just read something. Not a solid business strategy.

For my next book, my first with a pen name, I get a do-over. I’m going to try different strategies, different approaches and see what happens. I’m lucky I get that chance.

My Name is Cassandra, and I’ll Be Your Waitress

  

What would you do differently if you were starting your career in today’s publishing landscape?

 

Hindsight is a dangerous thing. “What If” is the poisonous snake that eats its own tail.

 

But since you asked what I’d do differently in today’s publishing landscape, I’ll murder two comparisons to answer the question. Think of the mythological Cassandra as a writer, and the art of writing as a restaurant.

 

If you don’t know Cassandra, she was the Trojan princess who traded a roll in the hay with Apollo for the gift of prophecy. But because gods are untrustworthy, the gift became a curse: she told the unvarnished truth with devastating accuracy, and nobody believed a word. She even predicted her own assassination. End of story.

 

Now, Take Two.

 

Cassandra is your waitress at a restaurant called The Whodunit. The concept is a mess—part greasy diner, part casual bistro, part chic contemporary cuisine. Like publishing, it is run by the ‘back of the house,’ dictated by an anxious owner and a temperamental chef and a team of caffeine-addled staff.

 

Diners wander in hoping for sustenance and respite from the world. They trust the staff. They have no idea if the Daily Special is twenty-four hours away from salmonella.

 

The real problem? The back of the house doesn’t know what the front of the house wants, and the front of the house doesn’t know until they taste it. Once the restaurant finds success with a handful of dishes, they never change them or the décor. The owner refuses to tempt the gods of commerce. Why mess with what makes the register go CA-CHING!

 

This is why readers see the exact same palette tone for every thriller, the same glossy animal art for cozies, and the same damn font family on every serious ‘literary’ tome.

 

When a diner asks Cassandra for advice, she’ll wrinkle her nose and tell you the dirty truth nobody else will say aloud: once you’ve worked in the kitchen, you’ll never eat there.

 

Agents and acquisitions editors have the knives, but as the writer, you’re the only one who knows how to disassemble a poisonous blowfish without killing the customer. If a dish doesn’t earn its place, it disappears from the menu. And if you’re not welcome at The Whodunit, you can walk.

 

The playwright Ferenc Molnár once said of his career: “First, I did it for my own pleasure. Then I did it for the pleasure of my friends. And now—I do it for money.” Substitute writing for prostitution, and voilà. You could write formula and do it for money or be like a brave and true Cassandra.

 

If I were starting today, Cassandra’s advice would be simple: Nobody knows what will sell. When a trend finally hits, the industry will cram it down the public’s gullet until everyone loses their appetite. Fads live and die.

 

I can’t speak to the side dish called Marketing. I don’t know if TikTok or Insta is worth the heartburn, or if an agent is worth their 15%. Editors aren’t mentors anymore; that work is subcontracted out. The Big Names sell for now, but in this business, you are here today and gone tomorrow. There is no accounting for timing and luck.

 

The only way to stay on the menu is to deliver a dish crafted so well, and with something so inexplicably you, that they can’t replicate it in a test kitchen.

 

Write what you love. Teach yourself to be terrifyingly good at it. As for the rest? Word of mouth is how the best joints survive.

 

What would you do differently if you were starting you career in today’s publishing landscape?

I am still at the beginning of my writing career, but there are always things you wish you could have or would have done differently given the chance. One of the biggest ones for me seems obvious. Write more. I spent years dreaming of the moment when I would find the perfect agent. I even had a few dream agents on my list.  I thought about the book release, the celebration, the joy of accomplishing my dream, but not so much about what would come next.

I’ve since learned that most writers, the successful ones, surely, never stop writing. As soon as one book is done, they immediately start on the next one. Even before I ever had a book deal, I wondered how someone like a Stephen King constantly had a new book out. Now I know, consistency and the hard work of getting your butt in the seat. Not sexy, necessarily, but the grind rarely is, is it? Which brings me to my second big change, the nine-to-five.

It’s not a secret that may writers still have to work a second job to make it in this world gone wild. I used to have a job that paid the bills. It was quite annoying, but I never had to think about it after the clock hit five. I gave that job up for a much more challenging job with a much more impressive salary.  It also came with a huge workload and the stress to match. Which, not surprising to anyone but me, meant less writing time or energy. Was the trade-off worth it? Given a chance to do it all over again, I’d keep that little annoying job and put my writing first. Having an idea, or the desire to write and having the space, time and energy, is two different things. Because rest assured whatever else you have planned, life is just going to keep on lifeing, whether you like it or not.

And finally, social media. Ugh! I’ll admit. I used to love it. If I’m honest, I probably would not even have a writing career at all without it. It was on social media that I was able to find a writing community.  That community helped me onto the path that led to me to finding my editor, then my agent, and finally becoming published. It was also a place to connect me with writers far ahead of me in their writing careers. They became my mentors, sources of encouragement, and friends. And then there were the writers who were in the early stages of their careers just like me. We dreamed together, supported each other, and cheered each other on at each victory, big or small. I can do more there and should, if I want to grow my career.

Sadly, I have no time machine to go back and fix the mistakes of the past. So, I’m having to rely on the tried-and-true method of learning from my mistakes. That’s fine. But don’t be surprised if you start seeing me pop up on your social media feed with videos of me talking about my books. And If I just happen to be announcing my new little job. Just know that that’s okay too.

 

Find Your Joy | Writer Self-care

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you’re at it? 

I’m never alone when I open the door to my writing studio.  On my right side are loneliness and guilt, the left doubt and fear. Loneliness because I do have to isolate myself to write my best, and guilt because I question if what I produce is worth the sacrifice. As R.F. Kuang says in the novel Yellowface, “You have no assurance that what you’re creating has any value, and any indication that you’re behind in the rat race sends you spiraling into the pits of despair. Keep your eyes on your own paper, they say. But that’s hard to do when everyone else’s papers are flapping constantly in your face.”  Amen. I have indeed spiraled. I have been in the pits.

And then there’s a tantalizing fear compelling me to go create because with every writing session I know that I'm about to embark upon an adventure. I might not recover mostly due to the subjects I choose to write about: serial killers, the haunted past, generational trauma, and flawed protagonists that sometimes I’m not sure I like. In my writing room, loneliness, doubt, fear and guilt elbow each other relentlessly. It gets very crowded. But still! The adventure! The magnificent possibilities!

Raven, she haunts my dreams.

After I complete a long writing session, my physical body emerges from the room, but my mind stays behind dazed and confused. Once at dinner after a long 8-hours of writing, my friend looked at me and said, “What’s going on with you tonight, Faye?” to which I gave no answer, because, after all, I was not yet all there. My mind needed time to catch up with my body.

Half of me was here.

To stay grounded, I try to do three things every day no matter what. I meditate for about 10 minutes (and yes, sometimes it’s hell because my mind is a hamster on a wheel), take a 30-minute walk, and write for an hour. I know the writing part may sound counterintuitive, but I stress when I go long spells without writing. I miss it. 

And I also read, hang out with author friends and talk mostly about writing, and play with the grandkids. When I say play, I mean play. I am assigned monster trucks and action figures. We act out scenarios and I do the voices. We chase each other around the house. That's where I find my joy. 

 

The grandkid on the slide. I went next.

Just remember, writing may be solitary, but in the end in this big wide world of ours, it’s just not that serious.

Inertia Notwithstanding from James W. Ziskin

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you’re at it? 

As Matthew wrote earlier this week, I don’t. I don’t care for myself. For starters, I don’t like exercise, a petulant sentiment to which I feel entitled by virtue of my advanced age and general lack of drive (read, I’ve managed to stick around this long and now I don’t feel like moving). I’d rather not exert myself, unless it’s for a good reason, like running from a lion. You won’t find me hiking through the woods or climbing mountains, no. I am one of the Great Indoorsmen. 

I exaggerate, of course. (No, I don’t.)

Inertia notwithstanding, however, I admit that I don’t actually sit for too long when writing. Perhaps I shouldn’t complain.

When I’m in a writing sprint—careering toward the end of a book—I spend a couple of hours a day in a chair working. Usually in the morning. Then I do other activities such as running errands or eating. Later, in the evening, I often return to writing and put in some more time. I write on a tablet, so I can work anywhere. On the couch, in bed, at the table. The hours I spend sitting and writing are actually a holiday for me (see above re: attitude toward exercise), which, I suppose, might be beneficial for my mental health.

But for the past several years, I’ve been teaching high school French. And now I’m teaching Italian and Spanish in a middle school, so there’s absolutely no reason for me to want for exercise. True, I do lose my mind every day. Several times a day, in fact. That’s just part of the job. It’s in the job description. Every day is a workout. 

In addition to insanity, another downside to a full-time teaching gig is that I don’t have the energy or inclination to write as much as I would like. But that will surely change. When it’s time to sit myself down and sprint to the end of a book, I’ll be ready. Exhausted, sure. Mentally drained, without a doubt. But blissfully content to sit for hours in a chair by myself. My mood will improve, the burden will lighten, and I will spit out a book. That always brightens the damp drizzly November in my soul. But I still won’t do any exercise.

**********************

THE PRANK…enigmatic and unnerving. The pace never flags for a second. This is some masterly plotting. I loved it. 

—Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond

Zero

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TAKEAWAYS

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you're at it?

by Dietrich

Writing may be a solitary pursuit, but once the characters come to life, the party starts.

That moment when the players stop feeling like outlines on the page and start their antics, making unexpected choices, and pulling the story in directions I never planned — that’s when I know I’ve arrived at something I won’t toss out the next morning. My quiet desk becomes the stage, and in an odd way I’m not alone anymore. There’s a gathering of voices.

To answer the question: as the months of writing tick by, I need to take care of body and mind to keep the whole thing going.

Hours disappear while I sit staring at the screen, living inside some character’s head. When I’m writing for long stretches, shoulders tighten, eyes strain, and the blood slows. Mentally, the solitude that once felt productive can tip into isolation. Sometimes I push on because the story feels like it’s getting richer, even though the writer seems to shrink.

So I have to remember that some degree of care is essential. I stand and stretch, walk around the room, sometimes dictating a scene out loud as I move. Speaking the dialogue while pacing helps me hear the rhythm and keeps the blood flowing at the same time. I keep a kettlebell and a dumbbell within reach so movement feels like part of the process instead of an interruption. A few reps between chapters work wonders to clear the mental fog. The body will keep the score if I ignore it; the mind also works better when the body isn’t neglected.

I protect the solitude when the story needs deep immersion—those long stretches when the only conversation that matters is the one happening on the page. But to keep the whole thing in check, I need real conversation and outdoor resets to ward off isolation. A walk outside, even twenty minutes, usually clears my head. Talking to an actual person—about anything, the weather, the news, the ridiculous plot twist I just invented—keeps me connected to the real world. 

Sleep is non-negotiable. Hydration is non-negotiable. Stepping away when the words get stuck is non-negotiable. Pushing through fatigue doesn’t produce better pages; it produces more pages that will need rewriting the next day.

I’ve noticed that when I neglect these things, the whole party suffers. The characters become flat. The energy dips. The joy that comes from watching a story come alive gets replaced by resentment and staring at a blank screen. On the days when I’m rested and energized, the opposite happens. The characters become vivid. The work feels lighter. The solitude becomes chosen rather than imposed.

In the end, the characters may throw the party, but I need to show up fully charged and in the right frame of mind to enjoy it. Taking care of the physical and mental self isn’t a distraction from the writing. It’s what makes the writing sustainable, and what keeps me ready when the characters show up.

Keep Moving

 

Terry here with our question of the week:

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you’re at it? 

For me, mental health is closely tied with physical health. Years ago I used to be a runner, and when I hurt my back and had to stop running, my mental health took a sharp decline until I found other ways to get exercise. So for me, getting plenty of physical exercise means I feel good. 

 People often comment on my energy, and I think it’s directly related to exercise. A caveat is that my father was also a very energetic person and I probably inherited the “energy” gene. But I also know that if I don’t get enough exercise I start to feel sluggish and my energy level goes way down. A few days ago I had to concentrate on turning around edits for a book and I neglected to exercise for a few days. Finally one evening I realized I had to take a walk for twenty minutes or so. The first ten minutes, I felt so sluggish I wondered if something was wrong. But gradually I began to pep up and by the end of the walk I felt much more energetic.

 For me, I usually need to get exercise first thing in the morning, because if wait until later in the day, I end up making excuses not to exercise: a have to cook dinner, I’m tired, I need to call someone, etc. What do I mean by exercise? I mean the real thing. Twice a week I walk with a group of women, a fast walk of three miles in an hour. Two other days I have an hour-long exercise class. The one I take is by Zoom with anywhere from ten to twenty people tuning in. I never pay the any attention to what anyone else in the class is doing. I concentrate on doing exactly what the leader, Sam, tells us to do. By the way, I’m well into being a senior, and it’s a senior exercise class. My guess is young people would find it not particularly challenging, but for me it’s perfect. 

 As for the other three days, I usually take a day off and the other two days will take a bike ride (er, I mean a trike ride—yep I have an adult tricycle) or a walk. The other thing is that I try to get up and move around every hour or so when I’m writing, because if I don’t, I get stiff. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work. For example a few days ago, I was deep into writing. I look at the clock and it was 12:15. FIVE MINUTES LATER it was 1:00. So sometimes I get so caught up that I don’t think to get up and move around. I know some people set timers so they’ll remember to do it, but I don’t like the idea of interrupting the flow. 

 Mental health. Happily, I have an optimistic disposition, and it serves me well. But sometimes I need more. Beyond using exercise to keep myself mentally healthy, it’s harder for me to figure out how to do it. Six years ago I moved to Los Angeles, and have to admit that I have a diminished life here. Previously, I enjoyed being social in the evenings after I’d finished working. In the Bay Area I could call someone spur of the moment and we’d get together. I had a lot of friends who were happy to do last-minute things. 

In LA, not so much. It’s partly a result of my not having years of cultivating friendships. People in my expanded age group have a set group of friends by now. But also, it’s the distances people have to travel to get together. I’ve made several friends in southern California that I really enjoy. But most of them live at least an hour away. It’s difficult to call someone up at 5:00 and say, “Come over for dinner.” They’re faced with an hour or more drive, and then an hour at the end of the evening. 

 Which brings me to a few activities I enjoy that keep me mentally in balance. One is attending events where I know I’ll run into other writers. I went to a panel a few nights ago that featured Tess Gerritsen, Meg Gardiner, and Jordan Harper. Jordan said he thought it was important to cultivate friendships with other writers because we understand the difficulties we all face. I agreed wholeheartedly. 

Which is why I also find that attending conferences is important to me. Seeing writer friends, catching up on their current projects, attending panels, and hanging out fills up my need for social contact. I go to bookstores when writers I enjoy reading will be talking and signing their newest books. Noir at the bar. Book fairs. It’s what keeps me mentally healthy. 

 So solitary, sedentary…it takes work to maintain body and soul, but it can be done.

Take Care - by Matthew Greene

Writing is a sedentary, solitary pursuit for the most part. How do you take care of your physical and mental health while you’re at it?

My first instinct was to answer this question with: I don't! That's the problem!

But let's see if I can do better than that.

So, I've been "selling out" a bit, as of late. By that I mean I've signed some contracts and taken some writing gigs that were purely for the money. Some of this was born out of necessity. (Three cheers for capitalism.) And I'm grateful for any opportunity to pay my bills doing what I love.

That is, until it ceases to be the thing I love.

Such has been my struggle for the last few months, as I dragged myself out from under the weight of commercial commitments and tried to rediscover the joy of the craft. And yes, I'm purposefully using a high falutin' word like "craft," because I'm trying to remind myself that my work is something that deserves to be taken seriously. 

I'll be honest, this has been a tough year. For all kinds of reasons, none of which I'll bore you with now. Suffice it to say, there have been days (weeks?) when it's been tough to do any more than just get through. There have been plenty of times when a new draft, a set of revisions, or a half-finished outline have seemed so meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Maybe that's why it was so easy to say yes to some of the soul-sucking writing assignments I've taken on, as of late. And maybe that's why it's taken such a toll on me.

Because yes, writing is hard. It can fill you with self doubt and make you question whether there's any merit to the way you see the world. It's not for the faint of heart. But the only thing that takes a bigger toll on my mental health than writing is not writing.

I discovered long ago that pen-to-paper (and, later, fingers-to-keys) was the way I made sense of the world around me. Crime fiction was a natural evolution of that impulse—the opportunity to sort the chaos of life into a narrative where things are solved. Maybe not completely. Maybe not perfectly. But it's a hell of a lot more control than I feel in the "real world" most days. 

While I was burning myself out writing "content" (god, I hate that word) that I couldn't care less about, I was neglecting the one thing that could have pulled me out of my artistic depression. I've discovered—not for the first time, and not for the last—that I need to write. 

I fear I didn't quite answer this very thoughtful question. I could come up with a list of things that have helped me in the past, healthy habits that I should get back to. I'll come back to read the sage advice of my fellow bloggers. I'm sure they'll have much more helpful things to share.

As for me, though, I'll just reflect on a moment I had this past week. My partner and I were on vacation in Dublin, and I snuck down to the hotel bar with a notebook and a pen. Fueled by gin and pent-up creative energy, I just let myself write. No expectations, no cell service, no contracts. And, liquor aside, those few minutes did a whole lot to heal me.

So, is writing the sickness or the cure? In my case, I think it's both. 

Pretend I'm Not Here by Poppy Gee

Describe your ideal bookshop

The main thing I want in a bookstore is to feel comfortable browsing endlessly. Sometimes you don't know what you're looking for until you find it. I'm so happy to be invisible in a bookstore. I want to soak it up, browse, read a few pages, explore, relax and find something new and amazing.

Here are some cool, original, unforgettable bookstores I have had the pleasure of browsing in:

Arcadian Books and Prints, New Orleans, USA

This is the most crowded bookstore I've ever been in. The book stacks tower precariously. Some fell, whooshing with a clatter to the floor, while I was there. The bookstore owner welcomed me then completely ignored me while he kept reading his book. I loved everything about this store. 

Quixotic Books, Launceston, Tasmania

This is such an unusual store. I walked in and saw hundreds of brand new books but I didn't recognise any of the covers. Usually you see all the regular big names in Australian publishing. Not here. Quixotic Books sells remainder books - books which didn't sell in bookstores overseas and were returned to the publisher. Toby Wheels-Cobb, the owner, selects books from catalogues of thousands of books, and brings them to Tasmania. He also describes himself as a book detective. If there is a book you want, he will find it for you.

 

Tell Me How It Ends Bookstore, Brisbane, Queensland

Located in California Alley in The Valley, this cool bookstore is owned by writer Lauren Jones. The decor is dark academia, you feel like you're inside a candlelit, gothic library when you're in this gorgeous intimate store. They stock everything, with a great range of romance.  

 

Barnes and Noble, Denver

There is nothing more exciting than seeing your own book in a big bookstore. I never take it for granted that my book will be there, and when it is, it's the best feeling in the world. My perfect bookstore would stock my books... I was thrilled to see VANISHING FALLS in this Barnes and Noble, several years after it was published.

 

No such thing as a bad bookshop, by Catriona

 Describe your ideal bookshop.

I'm not a discerning customer when it comes to bookshops. Look at my laptop. I've never been in a bookhop that I didn't li- 

Actually, I've just remembered a crime-fiction bookshop, in Wigtown (Scotland's book town) that a. stank of cat pee and b. was owned by an insufferable couple who had show-offy conversations with each other designed to be overheard and admired. It closed.

Which is not to say that I'm disagreeing with Eric, from yesterday, on the general topic of the bookshop cat. The bookshop *dog* on the other hand . . . Well one bookshop dog, anyway. Last week, Neil almost stepped on a wee terrier in a secondhand bookshop. It got a huge fright and skittered off after a high-pitched yelp. The owner looked up and said, quite mildly, "Oh, did he bite you?" Um, no. But if that's the level of surprise you'd feel, I think we'll both stay out of his way. Right?

And I also want to say that every other bookshop in Wigtown is lovely. Fewer than a thousand people live there but there are more than a dozen secondhand bookshops, inlcuding Scotland's largest, called The Bookshop and owned by Shaun Bythell who has written four diary-style memoirs about running it.

The words behind the lamp are "set fire to"

I love new-book bookshops too. The Avid Reader is my home bookshop. I have my launches there and order all US books from there. Old Haunts, though, up in Granite Bay is a new bookshop that's been an instant friend to our Sisters in Crime chapter. Kramers at Dupont Circle in DC was a stroll away from my flat there and served dinner. Bloomsbury in Ashland has a great coffeeshop with a charming garden. Underground Books in Oak Park is one third of a perfect evening out in Sacrmento: dinner at Fixin's, new book, old film at the Tower Theater. (Next month is Hitchcocktober.)

They're all absolutely ideal. 

But to try to answer the question . . .

My dream bookshop has comfy seats to sit and read in. It's got a banned books display that doesn't tell you why, when and where the books were banned, so you have to think. (I mean, The Wind in the Willows?) It's got non-snooty categorisation. (Because sometimes the division between "literature" and "fiction", or between "general fiction" and "mystery" comes down to nothing more than snobbery. And, often, sexism.)

I'm easy about music or no music. Even about what music. If a bookshop played Slipknot I'd be intrigued enough to linger and try to work out why. Oh. I've just remembered a happy memory from my first trip to the US in 2004. Neil and I were in Wooster (sic) OH, browsing in different bits of a big bookshop, when both of us started to actually listen to the NPR programme that was playing. Then we searched for and found each other other and both said, "Are you hearing this? What is this?" It was CarTalk. Happy days.

You know what other kind of bookshop I love? Fictional ones. Only a protagonist who's been having a rough time and suddenly inherits a creepy old house in the countryside is better Catriona-bait than a book set in a bookshop. Whether it's the total seasonal escapism of Jenny Colgan's Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop, the interrogation of toxicity in Alice Slater's Death of a Bookseller, the dramatic wallop of Amy Meyerson's The Bookshop of Yesterdays, or Laura Jensen Walker's bittersweet but redemptive The Pilgrimmage of Primrose Honeychurch (coming 20 Oct 2026), partially set in Hay-on-Wye, which is England's book town.  

And that's pretty much where we came in.

Cx

Bookshop by Eric Beetner

 Thinking about an ideal bookshop is such a pleasant exercise. Immediately I picture a warm, inviting space and that is a testament to all the previous bookshops I’ve been into. I do think there is maybe a difference between something one would describe a bookshop vs. a bookstore. It’s subtle, but it’s there.

First, a bookshop in my mind is independently owned by someone with a passion for books and not necessarily big bucks. Ideally it is tucked away in some small town, maybe in a building with some history. I like a bookshop with many rooms. You walk in the door and then move deeper into the space, getting lost a little. That’s definitely part of the fun.

In Westport, CT. where I lived for a while as a kid there was a place called The Remarkable Bookshop. It was housed in a 18th century colonial that they painted pink and it became iconic in our little town. The floors creaked, there were steps down or up into and out of rooms that you just knew people tripped over all the time. But it was magical. It opened in 1963 but of course it is long gone now. 

Maybe the most important thing for my ideal bookshop is it has to have a cat. I’m allergic to cats, but I’d still want one in every bookshop. When I walk into a bookshop and see a cat I know I’m in a good place.

I like a good ‘Staff Picks’ shelf or table. I like to know the staff is invested. Any great bookshop should be a place where you can go in not having a clue what you’re going to come out with and end up with a passionate pitch from a worker who truly loves a book they are trying to get into your hands.

Well delineated sections are good. There is a charm to browsing through a mish-mash of books looking for a diamond, but somehow that feels more at home in a used bookstore. Couldn’t say why, but in a used store the chaos is part of the charm. But if you have a special corner you return to each time you enter a favorite bookshop then you immediately know what is new, what’s being featured and what you should be looking at next. It becomes a personal, familiar space for you whether it’s the Mystery section, Romance or Horror. 

Any bookshop owner will tell you they can’t survive on book sales alone. I like to see puzzles in a bookshop. We’re so often the same demographic. Little book-themed tchotchkes and gift-y items are always welcome. 

I don’t drink coffee (I know, a writer who doesn’t drink coffee or alcohol - I’m a disgrace to the profession) but I do love a little coffee bar inside a store. That and comfy seating is a welcome invite to sit and browse. It is letting you know they are not trying to rush you out and get on with the next sale. I don’t love the people who take advantage of the seating and never buy a book, but bookshops don’t judge, only other customers. And more than a few books have been know to be written on a comfy couch in a cozy bookshop.

I like a good playlist, but music in a bookshop should be calm and I prefer instrumental. If I set foot in a bookshop and see a cat, hear some jazz and smell coffee I am in heaven.

Last, in my ideal bookshop I’d see myself behind the counter, recommending books, scheduling readings with authors I love, checking out the new releases and smiling at my wife as we settle in to our new life as small town bookshop owners who are poor, yes, but happy. In my vision she has a coffee in hand, I have my allergy meds and we both love hearing the sound of the bell over the door ring when a new book lover enters what I hope is their favorite bookshop.

Shoot the Refrigerator

  

Describe your ideal bookshop.

Writers such as Ann Patchett, Gabrielle Zevin, and Louise Erdrich have written about the ideal bookshop. Their visions tend toward the utopian: community, discovery, celebration, the warm glow of books bringing people together.

 

Lovely [sarcasm mode ON].

 

I’m looking for something with a little more adrenaline.

 

My ideal bookshop would remind me of the scene in Edward Abbey’s The Fool’s Progress—which, if you haven’t read it, you should. Henry Holyoak Lightcap is a boozer, a misanthrope, and a man on his third marriage. When his wife finally has had enough of him and leaves, he takes a .357 to the refrigerator.

 

Yes, the refrigerator is symbolic: defiance against modern progress, matrimony, and possibly refrigeration itself.

 

But that’s not why I love the scene.

 

I love the sudden, glorious act of Enough.

 

Books are in bookstores to be sold. Bookstores, like the rest of us, have bills to pay, so shelves are inevitably influenced by what sells.

 

But what sells is not necessarily what changes us. Sometimes what sells is the safe thing. Sometimes it’s the thing that has acquired so much momentum that refusing to stock it would be commercially insane.

 

Fifty Shades of Grey is an obvious example: a phenomenon that began as online serial fiction, gathered an enormous audience, and was subsequently revised and repackaged for a much larger market. The early print edition was infamous for howlers in copy editing and printing errors. “She liked caning” is a rather different proposition from “She liked canning.”

 

Then there’s A Confederacy of Dunces.

 

John Kennedy Toole couldn’t get his novel published. He committed suicide. His mother persisted in trying to get the manuscript published, eventually putting it in the hands of Walker Percy. The book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.

 

One book was practically impossible to sell until everyone wanted it. The other became a publishing sensation.

 

That’s the problem with letting the market decide too much: the market is very good at recognizing what it already recognizes.

 

My ideal bookstore would therefore be slightly unruly. I want books that might and will offend me. Books that make me uncomfortable. Books that make me think the unthinkable because I never experienced life the way the characters experience it. 

 

I want the book I didn’t know I needed because I didn’t know it existed.

 

Reading as escapism has its place. I enjoy it myself. Sometimes a reader needs a beach, a detective, a dragon, or a very attractive vampire. Fine.

 

But the books that matter—the books that alter a life, a conversation, culture—often make us think, feel, argue, or get genuinely pissed off.

 

There are already more books than there is shelf space. We can’t read everything, so someone has to decide what gets the real estate.

 

I’d rather that decision be made with some faith in readers because if how we spend money influences what the media corporations publish, and what corporations publish influences what we see, then the choice of what reaches the shelf is already shaping the field before we ever walk into the store.

 

And who knows what books we never discover because nobody decided they were worth the gamble?

 

Give me a bookstore full of bad bets.

 

Give me books that are weird, dangerous, inconvenient, brilliant, offensive, overlooked, or just plain difficult.

 

Give me something that makes me want to shoot the refrigerator.