We Need to Talk About Hags...

What a week!

Firstly, welcome to new subscribers, and first, some housekeeping. You will find in my newsletter lots of bookish news, each Sunday evening I send out a round-up of the books that are most talked about in the weekend’s newspaper reviews (here is last Sunday’s), and all-important links of how to buy them.

I also send out posts about the realities of life setting up a bookshop and my search for new premises. You also get to see videos of me interviewing authors for my Writers Recommend series, which is a sort of Desert Island Discs of books where authors pick their favourite four books from the genre they write in and we have a chat about why they love them so much, as well as talking about their own work. You can find the Writers Recommend series here on my website.

And, as I am a writer myself (in recent weeks we celebrated one of my books being another Sunday Times Bestseller) you’ll hear about my writing life too.

And all this content is free! Though, if you want to show any appreciation for the time it takes to write it all, you’re very welcome to buy a gift subscription which I believe is £5 a month.

BUT I know money is tight and so I would simply be delighted if you just buy books from my online store, thebookroom.uk

Anyway, with all that out of the way, we need to talk about this week. Regular followers will remember that on Monday I launched an exclusive offer for The Book Room shoppers. I teamed up with the publishers, Little, Brown, to offer a free badge with each purchase of Victoria Smith’s brilliant, HAGS.

Reader, I did not expect what happened next.

The publisher sent me 50 badges, and never in my wildest dreams did I think – or did the publisher think – I would sell fifty copies of the hardback book, so my initial order was conservative to put it mildly, but the orders starting coming… and coming, and coming. At the last count I have sold more than 100 books.

I was desperate not to disappoint people who wanted badges, so I pleaded with the publishers who have sent me another 100, and well, even as I await stock due today, half of them have already been assigned.

So the good news is, if you haven’t yet ordered because you thought you weren’t quick enough to bag a badge, you can now, and you can do so here.

Apologies to any of you eagerly awaiting your copies, this is not normal service as you would usually expect to receive your book within 48 hours, but because I needed to wait for more stock and more badges, it’s taking a little longer, but fret not, they are all on their way, and to apologise for the delay I’ve slipped a little extra thank you in there from me which looks like this… (turn it over to see)

Some of you may have received your books and not your badges (if you ordered multiple books, or books alongside other books) but don’t worry, I will post your badge separately, you will not miss out.

Oh, and all this posting out, or local deliveries, have meant I’ve been able to test out all my new branded paperbags, mailing bags, and stickers (for the black tissue paper envelopes I created to hold the badges).

But the interesting news of the week is this, many new shoppers came to buy HAGS from me simply because they couldn’t find it in their local Waterstones. Now, this has been an issue before with Waterstones, who tend to have supply issues with books written by women about women that *some* people might interpret as gender critical. Many people have also complained that they can’t find Hannah Barne’s TIME TO THINK in their local Waterstones either, and so they’ve been ordering that from me too.

Waterstones has been accused of censoring what it offers its customers, something which it has vehemently denied and instead blamed on stock issues.

Is this a stock issue? I haven’t found that to be the case and I’ve been ordering in huge volumes, and I’m assuming Waterstones has a lot more influence than me when it comes to getting stock quickly. Or could it be a woman issue? I’ll leave you to make your own mind up because, let’s face it, this is not the first time it has happened.

But suffice to say, Waterstones’ loss was my gain, and I shall resist here the temptation to call myself Whartonstones… ah, I didn’t quite resist it.

Anyway, the accusations leveled at Waterstones by shoppers, reached all the way to the trade mag, The Bookseller, and look who was quoted in it, none other than your new indie bookshop owner/writer.

Personally I don’t believe that bookshops should be censoring what readers should or shouldn’t buy, if indeed that is the case. What we should do is focus on selling books, and with that, I shall get back to more packing of envelopes.

• Thank you to all who have been ordering from my online bookshop in the last week. Remember you can still support THE BOOK ROOM while I am waiting to open my physical store again by shopping online, in fact now I would appreciate the support more than ever. I can order ANY BOOK for you and you will receive it within 48 hours. It has never been a more important time to support both writers and independents bookshops, and by buying from me, you are doing both and contributing to a vital ecosystem.