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Bookcafes & Bookstores | Independent Publishers | General Book and Other Links |
If you would like to be kept up to date with all our latest news, you can suscribe to our Monthly Newsletter or if you have any suggestions or books that you would like us to review, please feel free to Contact Us.Are you still searching for some inspirational reading, look through our complete Index by Book Name or Author Name.
Bookcafes & Bookstores
Where books + food + drink + conversation = a very good time!
Bookcaffe in Swanbourne, West Australia
Bookcaffe is an independent bookstore and cafe (perfect combination in our opinion). They also hold and host book clubs. Natalie and Tracy visited this place for lunch recently and discovered they have a great range of books and a very nice cafe, perfect for a Sunday lunch! The food was really nice with the only downside was that you can't flick through any of the books while enjoying a coffee - obviously we can see why not, but sometimes it is nice to have a look through a couple of books that aren't your usual selection. The Bookcaffe has recently undergone a refurbishment/makeover and now has an enlarged cafe area allow you to spend more time wandering through the bookshop on the upper level. There is also a new children's area and some gift ideas.
Millpoint Cafe Bookstore in South Perth, West Australia
A recent review in the West Australian (Tuesday, 6 April 2010) highlights this treasure trove located in South Perth. Not only is it a quality bookshop (independent so we should all support it), but also focuses on quality coffee and healthy home-style cooking (as shown by the thriving weekend breakfast scene). This bookstore also holds book clubs. So if you want to join a book club, this is a great place to start as the topics are diverse. Natalie and Tracy have ventured there for lunch and it was busy busy busy. The store had a good variety of books with tables spread throughout the store. We actually found some books here that were not avaiable in Borders!
The Well Bookshop in Shenton Park & Applecross, West Australia
This is another independent bookshop which can provide recommendations for book clubs. A rental system is in place, so you can ensure enough books for your club are available. The Well runs bookclubs on set nights of the week so you can find one you like and schedule it in your diary. Word of warning - they are not open on Sundays, as we once found out.
The New Edition Bookshop in Fremantle, West Australia
A funky independent bookstore in Fremantle, located just off the cafe strip. This is associated with Fremantle Press and sells books by local authors in addition to other mainstream and alternative works. Support your local book store it is a great place for local information. New Editions also has a funky clothing/jewellery store at the back of the book store which is a treasure trove of trinkets. They have a great selection of hardcover books which make great presents and some good cooking books that we hadn't seen elsewhere. This store just has a great feel about it, in fact the street has lots of good little cafes, art galleries, clothes shops and jewellery outlets that are individual.
The Bodhi Tree in Mt Hawthorn, West Australia
The Bodhi Tree is one of Perth's most unique bookstore cafe's and targets those who are looking for more than the traditional bookstore. The Bodhi Treet caters to those who choose to live a mindful and meaningful life. As well as a fantastic range of books, there is also a coffee loung that provides healthy, chemical-free food and makes an ideal place for meetings. There are a multitude of workshops and courses and also an in-house writing coach.
Independent Publishers
Wondered where to get your book published, try these
However, if you have a book you want published and would like us to review it, just contact us and we will put it on our reading list. In addition, writers should also grasp social media and take the opportunity to express yourselves publicly to a worldwide audience - websites, blogs, Facebook and even Twitter. Then you can also write pieces on other people's blogs which can increase your audience substantially.
If you are looking for a radical alternative to conventional publishing there is a new breed of radical publishers emerging who are able to respond quickly to current events. One of the new entrants to the market is Zer0 Books who had managed to publish an impressive range of books covering philosophy, political theory, music criticism, contemporary cinema etc. Not bad going considering the amount of high-stree stores that are closing down. Just goes to show that smaller publishers can be experimental and daring and still manage to surprise.
Fremantle Press is an independent publishing house right here in Fremantle and has a terrific range of Book Club Notes freely available on their website. It is great to promote and assist small publishing houses who do fantastic work in providing an avenue for small novelists. It is worth noting that they also accept unsolicited manuscripts, so if there are any budding writers out there, this is a good place to start!
Melrose Books is an independent publishing house in the UK, that is a new venture from the biographic publishing company Melrose Press. Welcoming unsolicited manuscripts and an easy online submission, they have a policy on maintaining personal contact with the author all through the submission process. This would be a good place to start if you are trying to get your manuscript published.
Figament is a great site for aspiring writers who want to get small pieces of their work out there. Maybe you have a great idea, but just haven't got it put together as a full manuscript? Maybe you'd like to try some ideas out on people? Maybe you just want to write some short stories for fun? Well this is the site for you. Registration and posting your work is totally free and all voting and commenting is done by fellow Figament writers. Best of all there are regular writing competitions which feature a different theme each time and where maybe you just might win something cool! Take a chance and post some work, you never know what could happen!
General Book and Other Links
Websites we love
Tracy's Travel Adventures
As you may have noticed sometimes my book pick of the month is not on time, that is because I like to travel and work overseas and depending where I am also dictates what level of internet access I have, if any. Click here to keep up to date with where I am, although I am now based in Sydney after spending 2011 travelling through Europe in a campervan which did take on the feeling of a mobile library.
Text
is the latest store to jump on the out-of-print classics bandwagon. In May 2012 it will release 32 Australian titles under the banner of Text Classics, covering authors from Watkin Tench, Matthew Flinders and Ned kelly to Henry Handel Richardson, Miles Franklin and Martin Boyd to Kenneth Cook, Gerlad Murnane, Tom Keneally, Helen Garnder, Kate Grneville, J.M. Coetzee and Peter Temple. Each book will be priced at $12.95 and has a new introduction by well-known contemporary writers. The books provide links through the Text website that includes a plethora of information including reading group discussion notes and author biographies.