Devil of the Deep is officially out in the world and I have so many feelings. I wanted to take a moment to share some of them and to thank you for the part you played in making all of this happen.

I spend a lot of time talking about the mission of Left Unread. Reminding you what we are building toward and fighting for. And while it is important to keep the work moving and focused, I don't want to lose sight of how beautiful it is to watch it all happen either. Because it is. So much of what we want to see in this industry is in front of us. Years of blood, sweat and tears away from being realized. But right here, in the now, we are making shit happen. And I am so proud of us.

Yesterday, we brought a very special book into the world. Devil of the Deep has been a passion project of mine for years now. I first read it after Falencia released the self-published version and I fell in love in the first few paragraphs. Just as many of you have now. I knew that it was going to live on as one of those books that fundamentally shifted the way I approached art and the world. So when I started this publishing imprint, I went to Falencia and begged her to work with me. To which she immediately agreed. But initially, we had a different project in mind. For two reasons:

1. Devil of the Deep was doing well on its own. Falencia was happy as a self-published author and she wasn't necessarily out there searching for a new home for the book.

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1. I had zero desire to be like larger publishers, who love to swoop in and pick up an indie project that has already proved itself. I don't see traditional publishing as the goal. I see it as a tool that works for some people and hinders others. And I don't see self-publishing as a limitation. Some of the most successful authors I know are only able to do this work full time because of the level of control they have in their own process. So I had no interest in republishing indie books that were already performing.

But there was no denying that Devil of the Deep was special to me. I had spent years trying to fight for authors in the margins. And Falencia and her beautiful mermaid/pirate cult came into my life right as I was finally figuring out how to use my platforms and influence to truly make a notable difference. We spent months together, fighting for this book and pushing the needle. I reached out to influencers who never would have paid attention to a debuting indie and put a book they came to love in their hands because they knew me. I mobilized my audience to buy Falencia out of stock over and over and over again, challenging them to show up in force and support her work. And this book became an example of what this community could accomplish if we worked together.

I talked about this at our Launch party last night, but without Devil of the Deep, none of this would have happened. Without Devil of the Deep, there would be no Left Unread. I would not have dedicated myself to fighting for authors. I would not be here, right now, EFFECTIVELY changing authors lives every single day. And we would not be positioned to become an EFFECTIVE disruption to this massive, incredibly gatekept, industry.

Devil of the Deep was not our first book. But it is the one that started all of this. Which is why yesterday was such an incredibly emotional day for me. As I'm sure you have all noticed. We have been watching the effects of centuries of global oppression tear down every security and comfort we have over the last few years. The economy has quickly rotted from the inside. People are spending less, because they have less. And more and more people are waking up to just how bad things have been for a very long time as we struggle to get our government to stop destroying the world on our dime. And the weight of all of that has been felt in the publishing industry. Even in the year since we published Cry, Voidbringer, it has become significantly harder to run a successful pre-order campaign. Which, as you know, is important in the fight for Black and brown books.

But here's the thing... you guys never let up.

I am getting emotional just typing this. As you have seen, I have been working my ass off to get this book in front of every single person possible. But I have never felt alone in that fight. Nor has Falencia. And that is because of this community. You. Every time I put out an ask, you said yes. Every time we had an idea for how to push the book, you showed up. Every link we dropped, you clicked. Every need we presented, you met.

There is a reason that Bindery is positioned to be a disruption in this industry. And it is not solely because of creators like me. It is because of you. You are the difference here. You show up every single day, passionate about change. Passionate about fighting for our authors. About showing up and taking ownership in the fight to tear down every single barrier in publishing. And because of that, our authors will never be a risk. Bookstores know that Bindery books will sell, Bindery authors will remain a good investment, and Bindery campaigns will work.

And we proved that yesterday. While most of this industry would see a Black sapphic fantasy that criticizes oppressive religion as a huge risk, I knew it would be a massive success. I knew that putting a Black woman on the cover would be celebrated. That taking a bold shot at Christian nationalism would be welcome. And that bringing you a story filled with Queer, Black characters would be something that you leaned into, rather than shy away from.

Stories like Devil of the Deep often struggle to find a place in this industry. But I knew it wouldn't struggle to find a place with you. And I knew you would champion it and get it to the readers who would fall in love with it just as much as I have.

And I was absolutely right.

I spent yesterday overwhelmed by the amount of love being poured out over Falencia, myself and Devil of the Deep. Every platform I have was going off every few minutes with notifications as you mentioned me in videos and posts where you celebrated this incredible launch and asked your audiences to invest in Falencia. And it made a huge difference. I saw the sales flooding in through the links I have posted all over my socials. I watched as our rankings jumped on Amazon. And I saw hundreds of comments from people announcing that they were ordering their copy.

You made a difference just like I knew you would.

And this is exactly what we are going to keep doing as a community. Because this is about more than book sales to me, and to you. We are in it to win the fight we started. To bring our passion for Black and brown authors and stories right to an industry that doesn't want them and to force them to open every single door.

I am so grateful to all of you for the work you have put in to bringing change. Thank you for fighting for Elaine and Falencia. Thank you for the work you are already doing for Inez and Shardai. Thank you for your commitment to the authors and stories we haven't even acquired yet. Just thank you. Because without you, this work wouldn't be possible. But with you, I know we can't fail.

And to anyone who is just coming across this community because of Devil of the Deep, now you know what we are about. We are forcing ourselves into a space that wasn't made for us, and refusing to leave until we've broken everything.

I love y'all. Let's keep breaking shit together.

If you are new to Left Unread, here are two ways you can get involved:

1. Subscribe to our community. As I described in this blog, we are only able to successfully fight for Black and brown authors because we do it as a community. So come be a part of that. If you have the means, consider doing that at the $5 tier or higher. That money helps to fund our work and enables us to invest in more authors and more stories. But if $5 or $12 is out of the budget, please subscribe for free and help us to talk about these projects. It all moves the needle.

2. Buy our books. We currently have two projects out and a third one available for pre-order. Grab one or two...or all three.

   • Cry, Voidbringer is an anarchist dark-fantasy following a Conscripted warrior who is trying to protect a supernaturally gifted young girl from being turned into a weapon in the same war that stole her childhood. This story is about colonialism and its impact on marginalized identities and the moral implications of picking up the weapons of our oppressors in our own fight for liberation.

   • Devil of the Deep is a Haitian fantasy about a mermaid, a pirate and a navy captain who have to work together to stop a cult from raising an island from the sea and reshaping the world in the image of their forgotten god. This book challenges the way religious extremism is often a tool in the hands of the powerful to silence their victims and rob them of their cultural identity.

   • Buzzard is a near-future dystopian about one of the last medical providers in a fractured United States with the training and willingness to perform abortions after she is caught and imprisoned for doing so. It follows her efforts to resist widespread human rights violations happening in a private facility where she is serving her time and her dream of one day being reunited with her sons. Buzzard is having a conversation about our country's very real, and very present, effort to gut reproductive rights and control the bodies of women and other marginalized people.

Thanks for being here and I hope you find a spot to plug in and make a difference! Happy reading!