It's born from just one single glance
It was new tattoo time at the start of this past fortnight and a stunning one it is, reminds me of a woodcut, a little bit Dürer.
This is the last big tattoo for a while, though I do have plans for both of my legs and one for a space on my right arm.
What I've been up to these past two weeks
It's been a weird time after being ill and being on holiday I'd spent a lot of my time reading again and realised it was something I really hadn't been doing much of as I was too busy trying to push side-hustles, grift and push projects to make money and this had sucked all the joy from them.
It's been great fun just getting back to book blogging and reading lots of books without putting pressure on myself to do anything else, read 13 books this month which is the most I've read in a month for a very long time.
I hadn't really realised how much pressure I was needlessly putting myself under until it all went away, and I know I don't want to put myself under that pressure again, especially turning 60 this year, I need to relax into my life.
I've consolidated all the accounts together and now only run Big Bearded Bookseller where everything that doesn't go on the Indie Bookshops, and Indie Publishers websites is put. This includes art, photography, tarot, writing, film and tv reviews but it is mainly book reviews, illustrator and author interviews.
Indie Bookshops website additions
Quinn's Bookshop (interview)
Indie Publishers website additions
3TimesRebel Press (directory)
Book Reviews
Not a River (12/03/24)
The Photography Ideas Book (12/03/24)
Tomorrow's Children (18/03/24)
The Spellshop (20/03/24)
A Tempest of Tea (25/03/24)
Anna's Garden (28/03/24)
Other blog posts
Tarot Wish List (16/03/24)
Wild Garlic Risotto (25/03/24)
Art / Photography (27/03/24)
The Lighthouse (28/03/24)
Questions for Independent Publishers
The ‘Publisher Profile’ feature is kicking off once again, there are already a few publishers who were part of this earlier and I’ll be updating and expanding their info first.
Each post will have contact information, some blurb, images, contact details, website, etc. I’ll be using public information for this, but if you want to be part of this you can get ahead of the crowd by answering the following questions:
When did you start publishing?
What made you want to start an independent publisher?
What genres do you specialise in?
Where are you based?
Do you have a submission window, if so when?
What is your submission procedure?
Who are you (team photo if possible)?
What was your background in the book industry before this venture?
Talk about some of your books if possible, upcoming, favourite?
Some photos, please
Website/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter and any other contact details please
Then send the answers and images to bigbeardedbookseller@gmail.com with the subject “Publisher Profile” or you could use this Google Form.
What's happening in the next two weeks
We've got one more week of Easter activities in the shop and I always like these times when the younger customers come in and have fun drawing, colouring in, and listening to me make all the farty sound and voices in a story time so most of my energy will be going in to that.
The commute has become a bonus of time rather than dead time and this is where I'm doing most of my reading and I've got several books to read and review in the next couple of weeks that I'm looking forward to, especially the upcoming Veronica Roth book "When Among Crows".
I'm always looking for more contributors to the author, illustrator, and blogger interview series, if you're interested click on the links to take you to the pages which will give you all the details you need.
Supporting these projects
One of the main way of supporting me in these projects is to follow me on one of my social media accounts and like/boost as this means people are seeing what I'm putting out there.
If you want you can always subscribe to my Ko-Fi to help me earn time to work on these projects with more consistency and eventually make this my go to work.
The membership will see you have exclusive access to the various documents that I'll be producing over the next year.
These will include booklets of the bookshops around the world broken into geographic area, specialisms, and checklists of the same.
There will also be a publisher document with all the information on the site compiled into a booklet, then there will be smaller booklets for children's publishers, etc.
For links to all the projects and social media accounts go to my linktr.ee
Grateful I've found you on here and not just damnable twitter.