The Conception

Open Closet Books started out of a love for queer books, and how hard it was for me to find them locally and at an affordable price. At a time where being queer has become more marginalised than ever, availability of fiction that reflects us has become more important than ever. I need to read books I see myself in, and I know others do too, so I took my dream of one day owning a cosy queer bookstore and modernised it.

For the past year, I’ve used every spare penny I had – and even some I didn’t – building a stock of new and used queer books, and bookish merchandise. I have researched tirelessly to attempt to buy books that fall under every letter of the LGBTQIA+ acronym. At this point, I have around 200 new and used queer books, and some bookish merchandise for sale.

The goal of Open Closet Books is to offer an easy to navigate website where anyone under the queer umbrella can find themselves reflected in the available selection of books. Everything for sale is AI-free, as I want to support my fellow authors, their cover designers, and the human artists that created the merch (if something slips through, let me know!). I keep the price as low as I can, based off what I paid for the books. Out of safety concerns for you, all books will be shipped discreetly.

I hope Open Closet Books will allow me to provide greater visibility to queer authors, I hope it grows so even more people have access to queer literature, and above all, I hope to foster community so no one feels alone in this rough political and social climate.

Thank you for shopping at Open Closet Books.

AJ Forton