The Ottawa Indie Book Crawl
The Ottawa Indie Bookstore Crawl
April 28th-30th
From April 28-30, Ottawa’s booklover community can collect stamps when they visit Ottawa’s six independent bookstores. After collecting a stamp from each shop, one lucky winner will win $150 to spend at Ottawa’s indie bookstores! Pickup your stamp card from a participating indie starting April 28.
Hosted jointly by Books on Beechwood, Octopus Books, Perfect Books, Singing Pebble Books, The Spaniel’s Tale Bookstore, and World of Maps, the Ottawa Indie Bookstore Crawl coincides with Canadian Independent Bookstore Day (CIBD) on April 29.
CIBD is an annual cultural celebration and an opportunity for book buyers, authors, illustrators, and publishers to acknowledge the vibrant literary ecosystem created by indie bookshops. In addition to the Indie Bookstore Crawl, each independent bookstore in Ottawa is hosting their own events, contests, sales, and giveaways to celebrate CIBD
Broken Keys Publishing's initial plans were to launch into publication in early 2020, but due to the pandemic, this was restrained, our full launching happening in early 2022.
It is our endeavour to change the print, publishing, and literary landscape of the Ottawa region, to find solutions, bridge challenges, and close the gap between unaffordable dreams and a marketable reality of truly getting oneself published!
Since 2020, we have added two new imprints to Broken Keys Publishing,
Broken Keys Publishing - KIDS!
Printing, publishing, and promoting local children's authors and books (as of the time of this post, we currently have 4 books, 3 children authors, and another 4 titles in the works).
Broken Keys Publishing & Press
We have moved fully into the print medium. We believe if you are not riding the wave of technological advancements, you are under it. Ebooks, Print-on-demand, paperback, Author-Copies, Print Editions are not synonymous and have their place, but should be viewed as tools for different purposes. It is about getting the right tool for the right job. With over 36 years in the print industry, our experience, contacts, and knowledge merge seamlessly into publication for an up-and-coming author's best chances! 2021 saw Broken Keys Publishing nominated and winning the CommunityVotes 2021 Best Printer Award. 2022 saw us win the Ottawa Awards for 2023 Best Printing Company, and again nominated for the 2023 CommunityVotes Awards for Best Printer.
I have been banging on about the changes in the retail and publishing industries for some time now, posing the question, what does this Post-Covid new, reconfigured normal look like?
From the Rise of the Indie-Author, the rise of the predatory Vanity Presses, big-box-bookstores morphing into knick-knack shops, the drastic shift in social media and its (less than) viability for marketing, the societal shifts of a lack of consume confidence, fear and paranoia of Covid-19, the shocking revelations of the Penguin Random House - Simon & Schuster Antitrust Trial, businesses that are embracing the new normal and those that are desperately resisting in an attempt hold onto their dying empires, to the closure of the Book Depository and all that it entails.
If interested, you can read my articles and essays of
me banging on about these very blights here:
The Elephants in the Room (July 31/22)
A Treacherous and Dangerous Landscape (Aug 2/22)
The Asshatery of Statistics (Sept 11/22)
The Challenges of the Path Forward (Nov 22/22)
Book Depository Closing (Apr 18/23)
But events like the Ottawa Indie Bookstore Crawl, THIS is a breath of fresh air! This is a step in the right direction. Support local? BE local.
As much as we on the production end can do - publishers, printers, brokers, etc. - the end result is that, if we don't have a viable method to sell and reach readers, it's all for naught.
Retail is critically important, and the Ottawa Indie Bookstore Crawl brings the spotlight on one of Ottawa's most important literary resources - Our independent book stores. It is where I believe our future lies.
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