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This is going to be a thread & it& #39;s going to get emotional & it may contain swearing. All of which is to explain why it& #39;s not coming from @BkstoreRomance. Because, as a Romance reader and advocate, the fight for Romance in indies is personal & long. And fucking exhausting, tbh. https://twitter.com/tashalharrison/status/1274413871772639237">https://twitter.com/tashalhar...
I& #39;ve been an indie bookseller for more than 20 years. I& #39;ve been a Romance reader since the 80s. These two identities have often seemed incompatible. I have been made to feel, by (some) peers & colleagues & @ABAbook & our industry in general that I am not a "real" bookseller
...because I don& #39;t read & advocate for what are deemed Very Important Books. (I am also a kids& #39; book person, so I get the sneers from all sides.)
Instead, I read books with kissing & feelings, which have traditionally been coded as feminine; "women& #39;s books."
Instead, I read books with kissing & feelings, which have traditionally been coded as feminine; "women& #39;s books."
And therefore have been deemed less "important." Which is especially disappointing from indie bookselling which has a significant number of women in higher positions--owners, managers, buyers--& tells you a lot about the internalized misogyny rampant in the industry.
Progress is being made, slowly but surely. There is a new generation of booksellers who couldn& #39;t give a single fuck what anyone thinks about what they choose to read & another generation of veteran booksellers (like me) who have reached a point of refusing to be quiet any longer.
We are the vanguard and we are fighting a fight that shouldn& #39;t really be a fight at all. But, fuck me, it is *exhausting*. And it would be so much easier to give up and go back to quietly advocating for Romance in the little bookstore ( @3rdstreetbooks) where I work.
But I can& #39;t and I won& #39;t because that& #39;s not the lesson that I learned from reading Romance. We don& #39;t give up. We don& #39;t give in. We fight for what we love. WE KEEP GOING.
And, where necessary, we recruit allies.
And, where necessary, we recruit allies.
We need you to be our allies. I& #39;m not asking readers or authors to keep trying with bookstores who have not respected you and your choices. That& #39;s our job. What I am asking is that you find a bookstore that is a #BookstoreRomanceDay participant & buy from them.
Here& #39;s a map. With website links. We& #39;ll ship your books to you if there isn& #39;t a store nearby. https://bookstoreromanceday.org/participating-bookstores/">https://bookstoreromanceday.org/participa...
@JenReadsRomance also has a map, with even more Romance-friendly bookstores. Don& #39;t give up on us. We are trying. So hard. But, it& #39;s a lot and we can& #39;t do it alone. Link to a Romance-friendly indie. Or link to the BRD @Bookshop_Org storefront. https://bookshop.org/shop/bkstoreromance">https://bookshop.org/shop/bkst...