Why are we doing this?
Because we want to support our writers and independent small presses and donate some money to local food banks as well. We also want to share our work with anyone that is interested in reading, even if they cannot pay for it. We hope that during this serious and stressful time, this site will provide some relief in the form of books and zines and poetry and stories.
And the longer answer is…
A few years ago, Amy McDaniel (publisher of 421 Atlanta Press) and Adam Robinson (publisher of Publishing Genius Press) made a website called Real Pants and on that site began a (bunch of) conversation(s) about how small presses and writers could work together for their own benefit. An idea that came from those conversations was a type of online store or website that had all proceeds flowing back to each individual press and/or writer (yes, like Amazon but only for independent small presses and their writers). Logistically, with print books and shipping among other issues, it turned out to be a difficult task to implement such an idea and it never happened. But right now, when many of the regular forms of doing business regarding books are not functioning at anywhere near capacity, this seemed like the perfect time to try something. So that is what we are doing, trying something. Some of the titles on this site may only be available on a temporary basis, while others will be here longer. We are also able to offer digital downloads in any language and from any region – so far we have titles by writers published by independent presses from Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela. Many of the titles on here are no longer available in print, and some of the publishers that originally published a few of these books are no longer around. Hopefully this site will turn into some sort of archive of small and micro presses and the writers that they publish. Enjoy browsing, downloading, and reading.
Jeremy Spencer
Scrambler Books
March, 2020