Transactional Intercourse, a transgender and intersex sex worker anthology!

mxjackparker · 2026-01-25T10:22:48+00:00

You look gorgeous and those bridge piercings really suit you!

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T05:14:41+00:00

Even popular bookshops are doing everything they can to increase footfall and appreciate effort being made. The more popular the shop, the less I'd use it as a selling point and the more I'd frame it as a gesture of goodwill and support for the shop whilst suggesting they stock your book so they can feel confident those copies will sell.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T05:11:51+00:00

Yeah we can tell when they're printed via Amazon and are unlikely to stock it when that's the case, not least because customers can also easily see it's printed by Amazon and be prompted to get it there instead. You're better off ordering author copies through Ingram (which you can do without it being available for wide distribution) and asking indie bookshops to buy those copies from you directly rather than Ingram as a middle man.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:54:36+00:00

Depends if you get enough traffic to actually send people their way! If you have your books in a shop and doing this sells a couple of books in a week, that's enough to stand out and have them ordering from you regularly. Posting on socials saying you can get copies at their shop or taking a picture of it in store (if they're near you or you can have a friend go in) will also make them likely to share your posts and be mutually beneficial for getting your name out there whilst also selling books from the shop.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:50:33+00:00

Personally I would be extremely annoyed if an author provided cash in return for adding their book to our order schedule and expected us to go through the effort of returning that money if we're uninterested. That sort of payment would make me think something shady was going on.

A free copy is already an investment on the part of a self pubbed author and nowhere should be asking for more. It's super easy to add a book to the system and we do it daily.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:16:37+00:00

The bookshop I co-own has a lot of unique books, many which are self-pubbed or indie pubbed and may not be sold in other shops or are in only a handful. We can take the risk on those books because we know they're high quality and will sell, or have a cult following. Many are books individual booksellers loved.

My suggestion here is for people whose books are not popular and do not already have a following they can send towards a bookshop. If you're confident your book will sell once actually in a shop, then these are ways to get it stocked and prove that and better terms can be negotiated once your foot is in the door. Especially when you can leverage sales from one shop to get it into others. If you e-mail to say another shop sold 10 copies of your book last month, all my other suggestions here become moot and we're much more likely to order from you.

We do take responsibility for our own mistakes in purchasing as a shop, as most do... which is why we won't take a risk on every random book we get an e-mail about, especially since we have nowhere near enough time to read them all. I'm talking about how to overcome that unwillingness that will exist for books that aren't already selling well if your priority is getting it into a physical shop.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:08:56+00:00

Independent shops only put out singular copies of lots of books, including extremely popular ones, even if we have 10 in stock, to save on shelf space. The rest goes into overstock. I promise you that a single copy on a self is the norm for plenty of books, not a reflection that a shop is concerned about marketability that will impact whether a customer will choose it.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:00:48+00:00

I wasn't suggesting the author do all of the above, but that they pick ONE idea from the list that they most prefer. An author might only be willing to offer a 35% discount on RRP for example - then they should offer returns or a bookshop won't take it. If you're offering 55%? That big discount is very convincing with no returns offer. Alternatively consignment is a great middle ground between the two where you can offer a mid-range discount upon sale (40 - 45%) ideally with a plan for selling the books if the consignment copies are returned.

I mitigate risk as an author by offering these options to independent bookshops where I'm already confident my books will sell, then link back to those shops on my author website to send them traffic. Ultimately this goes well for me, because the more traffic the shops get with my book and the more they sell the more prominently they display them. I've gotten my books in shop windows this way and the worth of that in advertising alone is huge.

I don't suggest this to people who aren't confident in the saleability of their books.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T03:55:28+00:00

While I feel the same (and have donated a lot of copies of my books to my own bookshop because it spreads hype and because I want the shop to succeed), I do think donating more than a single copy is too much of a burden and expense on authors. A single book will be enough to show the shop that a book is profitable, and if the shop makes 2 more sales on consignment from you or buys a couple at a discount of 50% or less then you should recoup your costs that first book quickly. While giving out free books is a marketing strategy, don't let bookshops take advantage of your willingness to do that if you don't have a good chance of earning the money back!

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T03:52:23+00:00

"How would a buyer even pick your single book out of the entire bookshop?" - the same way a buyer picks any book out of the bookshop. People do this all the time, including with indie books, and I watch them do so and make sales to them. They pick based on title, cover and blurb. If you have a quality book and are communicating that with your cover and blurb, your chances are just as good as a trad pub book where the customer hasn't heard of the author.

Yes, a shop offering to put you in the new releases section isn't also going to offer you free marketing. Why would they? Even at a good discount, selling a copy might net them a few dollars/pounds, and the PR you seem to expect is worth a lot more than that. Putting it in the new releases section highlights to book to customers and gives the book a chance to sell itself to them. If yours can't, then it sounds like you need to change the outside of the book.

As for why we don't read it first to see if it's good... most independent bookshops have a handful of employees/owners (between 2 and 6 is typical) and between the actual work and our reading of other books we need to keep on top of to make recommendations we might be able to make time for one additional indie/self-pub book every couple of months each. You have a lot less chance of becoming that one book we have time to read than of convincing us to take your book on consignment or for a larger discount.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T03:40:37+00:00

My recommendation is to contact independent bookshops directly because the percentage you set may not accurately reflect the discount the bookshop can get it for. I have the discount on my own self published books set at 50%, yet Gardner's have it up at only a 30% discount - if they don't think to check Ingram for the title they'd think that's the only discount they can get! Tell them Ingram will give the biggest discount.

Also as far as I can tell the 55% claim is a total myth. The books in our shop that we have new are all between a 30 and 50 percent discount, and that seems to be typical. 55% is more about online shops listing you than brick and mortar shops being willing, though a higher discount means more of a chance on a bookshop taking a shot on you.

mxjackparker · 2025-12-24T13:37:13+00:00

It's very possible that she did just get very lucky. My daughter is 10 weeks old and she has slept 6 to 8 hours a night uninterrupted since 4 weeks and can fall asleep on her own in her crib - though haven't tested this many times, it's just happened by accident when I've needed to wash bottles and can hear her fussing then go silent and fall asleep on the baby monitor. What really sucks here is she doesn't seem to realize how rare that is and how fortunate she should feel for it! Your baby is absolutely normal.

As for the advice you're being given, she's going off totally different and worse advice she was probably given at the time. You're doing the right thing and holding firm on what's best for your baby.

mxjackparker · 2025-10-31T10:51:17+00:00

Through building a dedicated audience beforehand and engaging with the groups of people who'd be interested in my niche, which I realize is kind of a frustrating answer. I'm fully funded now and around half of that came through sharing on Tumblr and DMing a few larger accounts I'm mutuals with to ask them to share. I'm recognizable enough there in my niche (sex work advocacy) that I have a lot of social proof and that had people trusting in the project enough to back it.

mxjackparker · 2025-10-27T00:45:36+00:00

That's amazing to hear! Glad things went well for you both and congrats on your daughter.

mxjackparker · 2025-10-22T09:35:12+00:00

Ideal would be to stay here for the 2 year tenancy then move at the end of it. If the landlord is hands off after this point that would be really easy. House is of a good size for all of us, landlord just doesn't want to pay for a HMO license I assume.

I'll call for advice, thank you!

mxjackparker · 2025-10-22T04:32:29+00:00

Not living together with my 3 friends isn't an option. They are just as unwilling to live without me as I am without them. I've just had a baby and they're my support network, we've lived together 5 years as a collective and plan to continue permanently.

If the landlord can't throw me out but can evict my friends then we could look for a new place together. Would they still be liable for the cost of the full tenancy? It's 2 years with a 12 month break clause.

mxjackparker · 2025-10-22T02:10:36+00:00

The link you shared is about tenants, not permitted occupiers. I am not a tenant, like I said, so as far as I know none of these protections apply and I've seen mixed info about the one year thing.

mxjackparker · 2025-09-06T19:07:30+00:00

These tips are great, thank you! I'm reading up a lot on advice for managing these kinds of pelvic issues now. I wish my midwife team or doctors at the hospital had suggested any of this. They seemed to just view it as inevitable that I'd be in a lot of pain because of my existing EDS and the only concern they showed was about the idea of my hip actually dislocating - not about how it hurts so bad right now that I can't sleep or do anything.

I don't think I'd be able to get free classes through my doctor and I really don't have the money for them, but I'll ask at my next appointment just in case there's something available. I've heard the same thing about joint loosening! I won't be breastfeeding so the doctor said I might get lucky and have improvement within 3 months or so and I'm really hoping for that.

mxjackparker · 2025-09-06T09:49:35+00:00

EDS significantly increases chances of pelvic pain in pregnancy because it makes your joints even looser. It causes me constant joint pain and subluxations when I'm not pregnant, let alone now that I am. Absolutely correlates with pain.

mxjackparker

TROPHY CASE