This holiday season I strongly urge you to buy small press books and literary journals for the people in your life who enjoy reading. I made a resolution last year to buy people small press books as often as possible when it comes time to buy someone a gift, and it’s worked out very well. Here’s why:

Small presses and literary journals need your support. Some of the best writing out there is being published by these venues, but a vast majority of the reading public doesn’t even know these books are out there. Small presses and journals usually operate mostly or entirely using funding from grants. They don’t have much money coming in, and they NEED people to buy copies of their books to keep themselves afloat. But with little or no budget for marketing, every single copy sold is a triumph; every book you or anyone else buys goes to a very worthwhile cause.

That’s right: buying these books is doing a good deed. It is! Small presses and journals are important from a cultural and artistic perspective. They take the chances that major publishers don’t take. They publish work based on its artistic and literary merit, NOT based on how much money it’s likely to rake in. Without these publishers, we would live in a world in which mostly all that’s available to read is the literary equivalent of big budget Hollywood blockbusters. Can you imagine a world without independent films? If the small presses were all to go under, that’s exactly the literary world we’d be stuck with. Sure, there would be a small selection of higher quality books, just like the Hollywood studios put out a few decent movies for Oscar consideration each year, but major studios and publishers alike are driven by the bottom line, and so the bad far, far outweighs the good.  

And if you’re a writer, I shouldn’t even need to explain to you why it’s in your best interest to keep small presses and literary journals out there. Unless you plan on getting really lucky, you’ll likely need to publish in these venues before you can hope to land an agent or a two book deal with a major publishing house (and those of us who are really being honest with ourselves know that the likelihood is that we’ll publish in these smaller places forever).

But culling gifts from small presses and journals is not just a good deed; it also makes for some genuinely awesome presents. Buying small press books or literary journals for your loved ones who enjoy reading will most likely expose them to authors, stories, and books they would never otherwise have heard of. It doesn’t mean you just buy something random that the recipient of the gift won’t even want. There are so many varied small press books and journals out there, you’re bound to find something for every reader on your gift list if you just take the time to look. I LOVE getting a book that looks good but that I didn’t even know existed for a gift. It’s an unexpected treat; it gives me something I never would have known I wanted and often opens up a whole new world of books I want to read when I find a new author whose writing I love.

So why not give it a try this year? To get started, you can find a good list of small presses and literary journals, complete with links to the press and journal websites, at NewPages.com. NewPages also posts book and journal reviews, which might help you pick out what to buy for whom, if you’re having trouble. Go here to look for small presses, and here to find a list of literary journals.

This week, I received an early Christmas present from my mom: a Kindle Touch. This is my first foray into the world of e-readers. Ever since e-readers first started to gain popularity several years ago, I’ve been adamantly against them—or at least, against owning one myself—and afraid of how they might affect the future of the book industry. As a writer, reader, and bookophile, I guess I just felt uncomfortable with the idea of electronic books, fearing that they may supplant the need for hard copy books altogether. This fear is somehow ridiculous and entirely reasonable all at once.

As writer, e-readers made me uncomfortable because I was afraid of how e-books would change the way writers are able to get their work out there. The biggest problem lies in the lack of any need for brick-and-mortar bookstores if there is no longer such a thing as ink-and-paper books. Online shoppers are only going to find books either by actively searching for them, having already learned of the book elsewhere, or by browsing (only the most popular, major publisher books will come up that way). Small presses and small press authors like me don’t stand a chance.

As a reader and bookophile, e-readers offended me aesthetically. I like books as physical objects, small, handheld works of art. I like the feel of them in my hands, the smell of them, the sound of the turning pages. I like the way they look lining my walls, just like they lined the walls of the home I grew up in. E-books, no matter how convenient, portable, and inexpensive, are not works of art. They’re technological marvels, sure, but not works of art.

But when my husband Damien decided he wanted a Kindle Touch, I found myself suddenly rethinking my whole stance. The main reason Damien gave for wanting a Kindle—and I couldn’t help but see his point—was because a lightweight, easy-to-hold-with-one-hand reading device would make calming a fussy baby so much more bearable. My mom, who has been on the Kindle bandwagon from the beginning, offered to buy him one for Christmas. Suddenly, I found myself wanting one too.

They arrived this week, and they’re every bit as useful as my mom said. We’re both in love with them. Damien’s read more this past few days than he’s been able to read in a long time. He’s actually reading more with the baby, because what else is there to do when she’s fussing or sleeping in your arms? Our Kindles also allow us to buy more books for less money, to never worry about how much it will cost to ship them the next time we move, to not run the risk of the post office losing them (I’m still raw about all the books the post office lost when we moved to Ohio), and to read the same book at the same time (especially nice for us because we like to read the same book and discuss it, which in the past has always meant one of us reading it first and then waiting, trying not to forget anything important, as the other reads it).

On top of that, they’re far more environmentally friendly. You might think the electricity you use to run the e-reader equals the paper used to print hard copy books, but the fact is, e-readers use electricity very economically. As long as you keep the wi-fi turned off when you’re not using it, Kindle Touches are supposed to last up to two months between charges. Both Damien and I have been using our Kindles like crazy since we got them, but the little battery symbols on both are still almost full.

Yes, if I set aside my nostalgic and possibly materialistic obsession with physical books, I can see that the benefits of e-books far outweigh those of their traditional, hard copy counterparts. And if I can come around on the e-reader issue—me, of all people!—it doesn’t seem such a stretch that so, eventually, will everyone, that sooner or later (probably later, maybe not in our lifetime), physical, hard copy books will be little more than antiques. Just look at records. Okay, they’re not extinct yet, but as the generations of people who actually lived in the pre-CD era die off, I think record companies will stop putting new albums out on vinyl.

I expect children’s books will continue to be published in hard copy form, but I’d be willing to bet that someday—maybe a hundred, two hundred years in the future—all other books will be published only in electronic form. And while part of me still wants to rage against such a future, there’s nothing wrong with, let’s face it, progress. Cheaper, easier to handle, and better for the Earth we live on—e-books are not, as it turns out, a bad thing.