Books from indie and small press publishers are often at the forefront of pushing boundaries within literature. In 2022 all of the UK's top literary prizes went to small publishers.

Everything we stock on this site is from independent publishers and small businesses. An independent publisher can be anything from those bigger guys at Faber and Bloomsbury down to ourselves at Dead Ink and even some small one-person enterprises. The variety adds to the fun.

If you want exciting, original and creative writing then don't rely on the mainstream – challenge it.

Independent bookshops give space for fairer competition within the world of books. They allow for a plurality of vision in what is stocked, promoted and sold. As the bookselling industry continues to consolidate, supporting independents is one of the few ways that consumers can enact change.

Our own bookshop on Liverpool's Smithdown Road is based around the concept of being a neighbourhood store, hub and third space. Your own local bookshop is very likely more than just a bookshop ...

Dead Ink began as a publisher and continues that work in tandem with the bookshop. The whole thing is a big cyclical book-obsessed ecosystem. The bookshop supports our publishing output and our publishing output supports our bookshop.

As a patron on our bookshop you are helping us to publish more books and publish them better.

When you buy a book you're voting. Somewhere a system has taken note – probably multiple systems – and they pay attention and when it happens enough it tells the people looking at that system that they should do that again. They should repeat it. Duplicate it. Wring life from it and reconstitute it and recycle it and repackage it back to you.

Don't read what you're told to read. Don't read what's paid to be on a chart. Don't read what somebody else thinks you should read.

Read something interesting. Read something weird. Read something dangerous. Something odd. Something forgotten. Something you've never heard of before. Something exciting. Something new. Something old. Something wild. Something that speaks to something. Something that needs to exist. Or something that just exists entirely on its own terms.

Just don't read something boring. Don't read what someone else is making you read.