bookshop - Ally Aldridge

From Saturday, 19 June to Saturday, 26 June, it’s Indie Bookshop Week.

This event has been running since 2006 by Books Are My Bag. They also run other bookish events to support Indie Bookshops like the BAMB Awards and Indie Bookshop Day in October.

Shoutout to my local Indie Bookshop

Stillwater Books is my local bookshop in Felixstowe.

It’s been a tough year for high street shops due to the pandemic. Many spent months closed as they weren’t deemed essential. I know, who said books aren’t essential?

Ocean Heart released on 1 Dec and the country was in lockdown. The book signing event I’d always dreamed of was looking bleak. Boris said no!

I reached out to Stillwater Books with my proposed idea, a work around solution for a book signing during lockdown. I literally happy danced when they said yes.

I promptly got to work on promoting the event. The manager was patient with me as I figured out details, how to order books, write an invoice, and all the other brand new tasks I was doing for the first time.

I signed the ordered books and brought them into the shop. I made a little video for YouTube. Customers who had preordered, then either collected from the store or arranged for local delivery.

I certainly hadn’t imagined a non-contact book signing before, but Stillwater Books worked with me to make it happen. I will always be thankful to them for helping make my dream come true.

Shop Local

It’s really important to shop at your local independent bookshop. In doing so, you are supporting your high street, local jobs, a small business, and treating yourself to a new read.

That’s why I love being an affiliate with Bookshop.org. Redfae Bookshop.org is my affiliate store giving recommendations on books you should buy. It connects you with a local independent bookshop for your purchase. In return you support them with your custom and I get a small commission.

Redfae Bookshop

If you enjoyed this, you will like:

My Affiliate Disclosure page

What’s a UBL & why your book needs one

Ocean Heart releases tomorrow

Now you can preorder Ocean Heart

[kofi]

Thank you to everyone who entered my MerMay Giveaway for a chance to win a book token.

Entry was free and open to all. My newsletter subscribers got an extra entry.

I decided to use Miniwebtool.com random name picker, to choose from the entries from both Instagram and webform (link was in the newsletter ).

The giveaway is now closed and the winner has been notified.

The Book Token wasn’t the only thing I gave away during May!

Free eBook

To celebrate Ocean Heart now being available on Google Play, I made it free to all for the first week of May. In addition, to thank my followers on Ko-Fi, I provided them a link that enabled them to get Ocean Heart for free for the entire month of May.

Thank you to everyone that took advantage of my MerMay book deal and treated themselves to a free copy of Ocean Heart. Happy reading and if you have time, please write a review. Reviews are super important to authors as it helps our books get discovered. ?

More Freebies

In April, I tried out the shop feature on Ko-Fi by offering a free digital Book Tracker. I made this product free and it’s still Free! Go download it now.

You can also buy Ocean Heart from my Ko-Fi shop and there’s an option to purchase a signed copy.

Charity donations

For MerMay I did an ocean themed spread on Instagram. It made me want to do something to support a cause that helps the sea and/or marine life.

Choosing a charity to donate to was harder than I thought. There are so many amazing charities out there.

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Author Ally Aldridge (@redfae)

I decided to use Miniwebtool.com random name picker again. This time I used it to select a charity from my shortlist. It picked Blue Marine Foundation

By working together, we can turn the tide on overfishing and the destruction of biodiversity. By supporting BLUE, you can help to create marine reserves around the world.
Blue Marine Foundation