Help fill up the Cosmos Bookshop and support Untimely Books

Hi everybody, as you may know, we (as Cosmos Cooperative) are getting ready to unfurl our print publishing tentacle via the imprint of Untimely Books, starting with the publication of Geoffreyjen Edwards’ science-fiction novel Plenum. One of the ways we are going to make our books available for purchase is through a store page on the new online bookstore Bookshop.org, whose mission is “to financially support local, independent bookstores.”

I actually asked Kathy the proprietor of one of my favorite local bookstores, Barbed Wire Books in Longmont, Colorado, what she thought of Bookshop, and she enthusiastically endorsed them, saying they were a lifesaver for her business especially during the pandemic. I’ve bought a bunch of books this way already and it’s felt good.

More on how Bookshop works...

Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores.

We believe that bookstores are essential to a healthy culture. They’re where authors can connect with readers, where we discover new writers, where children get hooked on the thrill of reading that can last a lifetime. They’re also anchors for our downtowns and communities.

As more and more people buy their books online, we wanted to create an easy, convenient way for you to get your books and support bookstores at the same time.

If you want to find a specific local bookstore to support, find them on our map and they’ll receive the full profit off your order. Otherwise, your order will contribute to an earnings pool that will be evenly distributed among independent bookstores (even those that don’t use Bookshop).

We also support anyone who advocates for books through our affiliate program, which pays a 10% commission on every sale, and gives a matching 10% to independent bookstores. If you are an author, a website or magazine, have a bookclub, an organization that wants to recommend books, or even just a book-lover with an Instagram feed, you can sign up to be an affiliate, start your own shop, and be rewarded for your advocacy of books. Bookshop wants to give back to everyone who promotes books, authors, and independent bookstores!

By design, we give away over 75% of our profit margin to stores, publications, authors and others who make up the thriving, inspirational culture around books!

We hope that Bookshop can help strengthen the fragile ecosystem and margins around bookselling and keep local bookstores an integral part of our culture and communities.

Bookshop is a benefit corporation - a corporation dedicated to the public good.

from https://bookshop.org/pages/about

Not only will Cosmos authors’ books be available on Bookshop.org (as well as other online stores internationally—Bookshop currently serves the US, though they are working on expanding), but we can also stock our virtual shelves with books our community loves or has read here on Infinite Conversations. When anyone purchases one of these books through our storefront, 10% that sale will support our co-op, while 10% will go to other Bookshop-affiliated local stores.

Here’s where you’ll find our storefront page:

https://bookshop.org/shop/cosmos

So how can you help?

  1. If you live in the US and don’t have a local bookstore you can directly support, buy your books through our Bookshop.org store. [<–bookmark it!] If we don’t have the book listed, try to find and buy it through Bookshop anyway and support a local store!
  2. If you’d like to suggest a book to add to our storefront, please post it below. To make it easy as possible for data entry, provide a direct link to the book on Bookshop.org (we need the 13-digit ISBN# at the end of the URL).
  3. If you think it would be fun managing our storefront or curating any of our lists, please let me know. This would be a perfect entry-level role for anyone interested in getting involved with the co-op.

Thank you all for supporting our creative writing and publishing efforts!

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