Category Archives: Journal

Review Policy

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I am currently CLOSED for review requests.

Books can be sent to:

Stephen Baird
Waterstones
17 Newport Crescent
Middlebrough
TS1 5UA

But please contact beforehand so we know where we both stand.

Things I am accepting

fiction: with fiction I will accept pretty much anything as I’m a very catholic reader and I’m always willing to read a new book, I do have a slight preference for speculative fiction and middle grade fiction but please don’t let that hold you back.

non-fiction: again with non-fiction I will pretty much read anything, but have a preference for nature writing, esoteric/witchcraft, travel, and art history.

tarot decks: each deck would get a use for a month with regular posts showing off the deck on social media with a review post at the end of the month.

What format I will accept

physical copy: ARC, finished paperback, hardcover, written on the back of Pizza Hut receipts.

digital copy: as close to finished copy as possible please, or at least well formatted as a poorly formatted copy usually means a DNF from me

What should you include in your review request to make it easier for both of us

  • the summary
  • the release date
  • any relevant information (especially anything that shows why this would be a good fit for me based on what you see on my blog)
  • if you have a time frame for when you expect the review to be posted, please let me know that as that will greatly influence my decision and I will have to see if we can commit to that timeline.

What happens if I accept your book/deck for review?

Before sending me a review request please understand that by accepting or receiving a book, I do not guarantee that it will be read immediately or posted on the blog immediately. I’ve got an ever growing stack of books that I want to read and a pretty busy life as well as the fact that I’m very much a mood reader. I will try my very best to read and review in a timely manner but it’s not always doable.

If the book is an ARC, I will try and publish the review on or around the release date and not before. I MAY do a Save the Date for it, in addition, if I really enjoyed it

I also reserve the right to NOT post a review of your book should I not feel comfortable doing so. This could be because I’ve run out of time, didn’t really have anything to say about it, etc.

I do try to post my reviews on Waterstones and StoryGraph also but sometimes I DO get behind on doing that.

I will also not post a negative review on the blog so that may also be a reason you don’t see it.

What else I may do on this blog

author interviews: typically I only interview authors that I’m familiar with.

giveaways: I will only post a giveaway of a book I have read or am anticipating to read!

blog tours: Like with giveaways, I have to have interest in the book being promoted or have enjoyed it. I only do blog tours with interesting, exclusive content. I want the content to be valuable to my reader and not something copy and pasted from blog to blog.

exclusive cover reveals: With this, it has to be for an author I’ve read or a book I’m excited about. I say exclusive because I do not want to be one of 100 bloggers revealing on the same day

guest blogging: I am interested in guest blogging on OTHER blogs and I will accept guest bloggers with topics I am interested in and that are relevant to my site.

Please use the Contact Me form or email me if you are interested in having me review a book

I am not paid to blog or review. I wish I was but sadly I’m not. I’m just a reviewer that loves to read and talk to other book loving folks. So, please keep that in mind when wanting to work with me. I don’t run a tight schedule with my reading because it makes it not fun for me and I’ll only accept deadlines that I agree to first.

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Bluesky Starter Packs

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Here are the Bluesky Starter Packs I’ve made, I’m making some randoms as I was thinking that so many people are being left out of these.

So rooibos for a start…

Independent Bookshops

Independent Bookshops

Independent Publishers

Independent Publishers

Book Bloggers and Reviewers 1

Book Bloggers and Reviewers 1

Book Bloggers and Reviewers 2

Book Bloggers and Reviewers 2

People I Love to Follow

People I Love to Follow

Your Wallet Won't Thank You

Your Wallet Won’t Thank You

Booksellers of Bluesky

Booksellers of Bluesky

Literary Events

Literary Events

Sensitivity Readers

Sensitivity Readers

Audiobook Voices

Audiobook Voices

Redbush Readers

Redbush Readers

Horror Fam

Horror Fam
Debut Authors 2025

Debut Authors 2025
KoFi and Substack Authors

KoFi and Substack Authors

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Recurring Dream

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The only way to travel…

The only way to travel…

As I said on Twitter a while back (link no longer exists, same as my Twitter account) I’ve had a recurring dream of travelling around the world in a split-screen VW Camper visiting every bookshops I could and blogging about it, picking books up and reading them at the coast and talking to lovely booksellers, authors, and publishers.

This was also part of the idea behind starting the Indie Bookshops and Indie Publishers blogs, visiting various bookshops and publishers, interviewing them, and having a jolly good time whilst doing it.

So this has always been at the back of my mind as a thing I’d love to do and I tweeted about it and got a lot of people agreeing that this is a lovely dream and how fun and fabulous that would be.

Then I got a few people saying have you thought how much it would take to be able to do this and I threw out a few flippant figures, but then it got me thinking how much would it take?

After a bit of rough figuring out I realised that campers are more expensive than I thought and come out at about £30,000 for a half decent one so that would be the first hurdle, getting to that figure feels impossible, but could be achieved with a lot of saving and begging on a crowdfunder platform of one description or other.

The next thing would be how much would I need to live, this would include contributions toward the house and running the camper van at the same time and that was easier and a bit more fun. If 10% of my Bluesky followers subscribed to my Ko-Fi for £1.00 a month that would cover it!

When put like that it seems as if I work hard to push it I could achieve my dream, it would mean I could blog on the move, not just about the book world but I could use it as an opportunity to rekindle my photography and being on the move wouldn’t stop the rest of the projects I’ve got going on either.

It sounds like it could be fun but hard work to get there and worth the try.

So on my Ko-Fi I have various subscription levels, one is set at a minimum of £1 a month and this is general support for all my projects as an appreciation, one set at a minimum of £3.50 a month which gives you access to any documents I develop on and about indie bookshops, indie publishers, author interviews, and illustrator interviews such as checklists, directories, videos and anything else that I can think of, then there is one at £6 minimum which gives you access to all the other benefits plus access to the short stories I purchased electronic reprint rights for on a previous project.

Membership levels

Membership levels

Eventually there will be a monthly tarot reading membership level and a photo of the month level but I’ve still to iron out the details of these, but keep an eye on them if you’re interested.

If you like what I do and want to encourage me to travel more please consider a monthly Ko-Fi subscription.

originally posted 13/07/23 updated 25/11/24

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The Bird is Dead

by Stephen | Leave a comment

Ex Twitter

Ex Twitter

I’d been thinking about it for a while and coming up with excuse after excuse not to, but today was the day I deactivated my Twitter account..

I’ve been on and off Twitter for a long time, probably since about 2012 but it wasn’t until about 6 years ago that I really got into my swing with it.

This was when the @indiebookshopuk account started to go along with the Indie Bookshops website which quickly gained traction and when I added the Indie Publishers website a couple of years later it gained some more, getting to about 15,000 followers and I was posting and adding content regularly.

Then Musk bought Twitter and I sort of consolidated everything under the Big Bearded Bookseller twitter account but still posting bookshop/publisher information but with nowhere as much frequency of pleasure.

I decided to hang on to see where it went but it kept getting worse and worse and several months ago I stopped posting with any frequency whatsoever and lost all my love for the place, and over the last couple of months as the election transpired in the US and Musk’s involvement and encouragement of right wing, racist, abusive, and misogynist thought and behaviour on Twitter I realised I’d had enough.

I’d soft left for Bluesky, and left a parting message and locked my account down and thought I could keep it at that until I had taken all the data off that I’d saved, this lasted a week, when I went on today the place was a cesspit, the slightest progressive post was being jumped on and wanted to bleach my eyeballs and realised I don’t need this, so the button was pressed and now it’s the 30 day countdown and its gone by Christmas.

There are so many people I’ll miss but this if for my sanity and not to give legitimacy to a right-wing cesspit.

A great Christmas present!

I can be found over on Bluesky and Instagram for any social media, though I’m unsure of how long I’ll stay on Instagram as my love for it has also waned the more adverts and non-followed posts I see.

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Future Blogging

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Journal

Thoughts

Been having a lot of problems with motivation to read lately, lots going on in my life and working full time with a 12-hour day out of the house has put a real crimp on any chance of blogging on any kind of regular basis.

It’s started making me feel really anxious about the whole blogging thing as I was tipping into the idea of having timetables and goals again which is never healthy, and this was adding to me feeling a lot of FOMO at the moment.

I was chasing ARCs and release dates without the actual capacity to do anything close to achieving any of these self-imposed goals.

I subconsciously was trying to develop a side-hustle without having the space or energy to put into a side-hustle and this is causing me a lot of anxiety, and as soon as I realised this I pulled back a bit on everything and that’s why there’s been no newsletter for a while, review rates are down as is my posting on social media. I now only really seem to be posting on Bluesky as it feel far more relaxed but with some great interaction.

At this point I’m not entirely sure of what I’m doing or how I want to proceed but I know I’m no longer chasing ARCs and deadlines, I’ll eventually read all the books I’ve got but will not feel pressured by dates. I’ll also no longer be taking any review requests as these have been getting weirder and weirder over the last few months, some aggressive, most passive aggressive.

So from now I’m just going to blog when I feel like it and can fit it in, not feel as though there’s any pressure on me to hustle and just enjoy myself again.

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Women in Translation 2024

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It has it's own shelf

It has it’s own shelf

As some of you may have already seen on social media and here I’m a big fan of Charco Press and have a complete collection of all they’ve published and keep this up to date.

I thought this August would be a perfect time to read and review some of the Charco Press books in my collection for Women in Translation month (and also 20 Books of Summer if needed).

This is also a way to encourage me to read the books I have in the house 😉 before adding more to the physical collection, but it’s not goping to be much of a hardship as Charco Press have produced some of my all time favourite books. and I’m looking forward to exploring the collection from the start.

This is the list of the whole Charco Press collection and yes I know that not every one is written by a woman but I’ll only be reading the ones that are (these are asterisked) during the month of August and then translating this post into part of the post for the Charco Press publisher page.

  1. Slum Virgin* (09/17)
  2. The President’s Room (09/17)
  3. Die, My Love* (09/17)
  4. Fireflies (01/18)
  5. Southerly (01/18)
  6. Fish Soup* (06/18)
  7. The Distance Between Us (08/18)
  8. Older Brother (09/18)
  9. Resistance (10/18)
  10. The German Room* (11/18)
  11. Trout, Belly Up (02/19)
  12. Feebleminded* (05/19)
  13. The Wind That Lays Waste* (07/19)
  14. Loop* (10/19)
  15. An Orphan World (10/19)
  16. The Adventures of China Iron* (11/19)
  17. Fate (03/20)
  18. Holiday Heart* (06/20)
  19. A Musical Offering (07/20)
  20. Dead Girls* (09/20)
  21. Ramifications (10/20)
  22. Theatre of War* (11/20)
  23. Havana Year Zero* (02/21)
  24. A Perfect Cemetery (04/21)
  25. Elena Knows* (07/21)
  26. Occupation (08/21)
  27. The Rooftop* (10/21)
  28. Byobu* (11/21)
  29. Brickmakers* (11/21)
  30. Tender* (02/22) (read)
  31. Catching Fire (04/22)
  32. Never Did the Fire* (04/22)
  33. Here Be Icebergs* (06/22)
  34. The Forgery* (07/22)
  35. Homesick* (08/22)
  36. Salt Crystals* (09/22)
  37. Untold Microcosms: Latin American Writers in the British Museum (09/22)
  38. Dislocations* (11/22)
  39. You Shall Leave Your Land (01/23)
  40. Two Sherpas (02/23)
  41. The Remains* (03/23)
  42. Of Cattle and Men* (04/23)
  43. Fresh Dirt from the Grave* (06/23)
  44. A Little Luck* (07/23)
  45. Confession (09/23)
  46. The Delivery* (10/23)
  47. Forgotten Manuscript (11/23)
  48. Not A River* (01/24)
  49. The Dark Side of Skin (02/24)
  50. Why Did You Come Back Every Summer* (04/24)
  51. Explorers, Dreamers and Thieves (05/24)
  52. Tidal Waters* (05/24)
  53. The Cemetery of Untold Stories* (06/24)
  54. Last Date in El Zapotal (06/24)
  55. Time of the Flies* (08/24)
  56. The Plains (10/24)

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