Went to the Rainbow Book Fair in NYC yesterday. Had a great time perusing the tables–since gay and lesbian bookstores in the my area have gone extinct–it was a nice opportunity to check out what’s new with lgbt small/independent presses. There were a few tables featuring big, tom-of-finlandesque men but there were a wide variety of publishers present including Redbone Press, Vintage Entity Press, and The Feminist Press. (See the Full list here.)

Lisa C. Moore from Redbone Press was on a panel called How to Run a Small Press Without Going (Completely) Bankrupt; it was eye opening. Discounts from online retailers may seem like a great deal at the moment but it’s not that retailer who takes a cut in profits. Add disappearing distributors and vanishing bookstores to the mix…small presses work extremely hard to get to produce books/media for communities that big publishers often don’t give a second thought to. T’is better to buy directly from a small press, pay full retail price+shipping, and–hopefully–be rewarded with more fantastic books in the future.

So, sometime this summer, I’ll get rid of the Kuma2.net Amazon affiliate store and redirect people interested in a specific title to the website of the publisher itself.