Being an indie author in Dallas is no picnic. It has nothing to do with my genre – Dallas is the home of Texas Frightmare Weekend, and there’s enough of my colleagues residing nearby to keep it relevent. Texas Author and Reader Con has changed hands and is now Texas Horror Lit Fest. I guess that means I no longer have a stronger voice when it comes to the convention comings and goings. Cool beans. I’d rather just attend than offer my opinions. They never seem to match anyone else’s anyway. No harm/no foul, just wasted time.

The hardest part of my life is getting indie bookstore owners to return phone calls and emails. When they do, and when I provide them with my wares, they sell out fast. I can guarantee you that none of these stores operate on charity and love money. That’s why they’re in all the posh party hoods around town. Drunk cowboys from beyond the suburbs love to buy their “Officially Sponsored White Claw Panty Raid Of The Week” girlfriends liberal/banned books to help them along their way to realizing they were really feminists all along. By then, they’re married to MAGA, had a few kids, and in charge of the church bake sale. That’s what I call the “East Texas Fairytale”.

Take your pick: Lower/Lowest Greenville, Deep Ellum, or Bishop Arts.

Of the three closest to me, I managed to get my books into one. Luckily, that organization has two stores in two of the neighborhoods mentioned above. They’re good people, they just suck at correspondence. Time is money, and the market changes daily. Horror ebbs and flows with whenever Stephen King releases something new. All the horror authors polarize, begin fighting amongst themselves in regard to whether or not King is truly God, and to the spoils go the fanbase. I’ve lost a few arguments with gatekeepers, and that’s why only the cool kids know who I am. That’s the way (uh-huh uh-huh) I like it.

The next bookstore actually reached out to me first. They vet what they sell, and one – only one – individual makes that decision. I’d randomly left a copy there as a giveaway to a lucky reader who may or may not have possessed the money to purchase some of this store’s poony wares. Anyway, the chick hit me up on social media saying she read my book, and that she doesn’t allow things in her store told in a passive voice. I kindly told her that wasn’t the point of me leaving it there, the book was an award-nominated revenge anthology containing a dozen or more stories from a dozen or more authors told in various ways; you didn’t read my book. Truly, that may have been one of the most pretentious moves I’ve ever encountered in two decades of professional writing on either side of the pond. I haven’t returned to that store, nor will I.

The final store was my latest endeavor. I walked into it with no one else in sight; staff included. I passed a gentleman on the porch, but he didn’t acknowledge me as a potential customer – as Mom & Pop store owner/workers tend to do. After ten minutes of me wandering, he entered, and retreived his subordinate to finally acknowledge me. That’s when I expereinced what I strongly refer to as “gentrification racism”. I resemble the white devils who are destroying their neighborhood heritage, and the hatred oozed from their pores. It was that obvious. They knew the answer to my every question before it even left my mouth. I get it, but I don’t. I can’t, so I won’t.

I’m a middle-aged heterosexual white male with a military style haircut and a beard. Some would say I don’t resemble the traditional author, but some are idiots. Sure, they can sell books, but have they ever been to a conference? We represent every race, color, and creed this country has to offer, and we all bleed ink. You can be my colleague and friend, unless you’re a dick. Dickery knows no color. Unless these stores plan on filling their shelves with AI compiled cyber-crap, they need us, even if we don’t look like them or write tampon fantasies from Lilith Fair.

That stab was a little personal, but that book-chick had it coming. She blamed me for not supporting her life’s agenda when, in fact, I’m related to a world-reknowned queer studies expert…and we get along famously. I just don’t go around announcing those types of fact often, if ever. I’m interesting enough without the need to inform everyone around me what I do with my nether regions and who I do it with.

American “ism’s” roll downhill, and I can’t help but think they’ve made it all the way to independent literature. It’s not that there’s less of a market for any particular genre, but I feel there’s less of a market for who I appear to be as an author; someone resembling our current oppressors on the evening news.

Preach truths, toke jokes, and shoplift Amazon. The way I see it, Dallas is an extremely racist/classist city, it just hides behind snarky comments told through artificially-whitened, chenched-jawed border walls made of teeth. Creepy.