Book Update: My Fighting Family in stores, in the U.S.

The question I’ve received the most in the 11 months since My Fighting Family first went public?

“Where can I find your book in person?”

For Canadians, the answer’s easy. You can pick it up at almost any Chapters or Indigo, and if you’re near Toronto there’s a good chance your local indie also carries it.

But for a long time you couldn’t find my book on real-life shelves in the U.S. I know because I checked. Repeatedly. With chains and indies alike. Most of them said they could order my book for you. None of them said “My Fighting Family is in our store.”

So when friends and potential fans in the U.S. would ask where they could pick up a copy of my book in real life, I never had a concrete answer for them.

Until now.

Starting Jan. 2, 2025 — which is *today* if you’re reading this today — you can buy my memoir at Call & Response Books in Chicago. They’re the very first U.S. book store to stock My Fighting Family on their shelves, and the arrangement couldn’t make more sense. They’re Black-owned and independent, new to the neighborhood and looking to solidify their foothold in the local market. And they’re in Hyde Park, on the South Side of Chicago, where half the action in my book unfolds. This partnership is as natural as back pain and middle-aged dads.

If you’re in Chicago and looking for my book, now you know you can find it at Call & Response. If you’re beyond Chicago, you can order from their website and they’ll ship it to you. Either way, My Fighting Family is finally in a real store on the other side of the border, and I’m thrilled we finally made this happen.

In the immediate term, this news means I’ll have to update the BUY MY BOOK page on this site. When I told you all I was working on improving U.S. distribution, this is what I meant.

Bigger picture, there are lessons here for aspiring and published authors.

First, I’ve learned that patience helps. Marketing wise, a lot will happen in year 2 that I wish had happened in year one. Long-term I’m confident the sales will even out, but from the standpoint of paying the bills, early visibility always helps. That’s how you land on end-of-the-year lists, or catch the awards cycle. Awards pay cash, and cash pays bills. I don’t write to get rich but it’s still a business, and business is picking up. A year behind schedule but right on time.

Still, My Fighting Family’s absence from U.S. bookshelves had me beyond frustrated. I understand that I published with Penguin Random House *Canada*, and that Canadian content doesn’t always play well in the U.S. Early on it’s almost impossible to tell if your book will cross over in a big way, like  Alanis Morissette the rock star, or barely cause a ripple outside southern Ontario, like Alanis the dance music songstress.

Except a memoir that chronicles growing up in a border-straddling Black family should, in theory, have markets on both sides. In reality, the 49th parallel functioned like a firewall, standing between this book and its biggest potential audiences.

So Call & Response picking up My Fighting Family isn’t just a transaction to me.

It’s a breakthrough.

Second, and just as important, even if you’re signed to a big publisher, it helps to act like an independent author. In my case, it meant sniffing around the internet to see which stores and libraries carried my book, and which ones needed an email from me suggesting they add it to their shelves. This is unglamourous work, and it’s as much a part of author life as sitting in cafés and thinking deep thoughts. Don’t assume anybody else will do it for you. Unless you can pay a personal assistant — and lord knows I can’t — this is labor you perform yourself.

So I spent a few weeks in October messaging indies about My Fighting Family, and Call & Response hit me with a quick auto reply. A month or so later I was in Chicago and stopped by the store to buy The Message and place an order for Stay Black and Die. While cashing out I decided to, as folks a little younger than I am call it, shoot my shot.

Asked Tamara, who was at the register that afternoon, if Call & Response was interested in stocking my book, which I had in my backpack, because every non-famous author should always carry a copy, like smart phone or a set of keys. Tamara summoned Courtney, the owner, and they passed the book back and forth while I delivered my elevator pitch.

They both loved the idea of my book, but couldn’t figure out why they had never heard of it before. A quick search of their database revealed that I had slipped through the cracks at Ingram, the main U.S. distributor for all kinds of titles.

My task this month is to find out how that happened, but for right now I have to credit Call & Response for choosing action. Rather than wait for the Ingram mystery to solve itself, they ordered my book directly from the publisher. When it arrived they displayed it face-first in the adult non-fiction section, right next to Elaine Brown’s A Taste of Power. You can find it there right now… unless you folks have bought all the copies… which I hope you do.

Either way, I couldn’t be more proud of the way My Fighting Family hit the U.S. market. My book, on sale in the city where it all started. Customers supporting a Black business that took a chance on a Black author. What a virtuous cycle.

From here, other U.S. book stores will (likely, hopefully) pick my book up, but right now I’m thrilled with the one that already has it. They didn’t need an elaborate sales pitch. Just a quick conversation, and they committed. I’m excited to see what happens from here.

A few weeks ago my man @ZacOnBothSides hopped into my IG comments, asking when I’d have a book signing in Hyde Park.

No solid answer yet, but I know this:

We’re a big step closer than we were yesterday.

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