@tortoisebooks.bsky.social
Steinbeck's six rules for aspiring writers. (Courtesy
@mikhail-iossel.bsky.social)
COVER REVEAL...we would like to introduce you to the outstanding new literary thriller/noir by Josh Corey, THE LAST WORDS OF JACK RUBY! Available everywhere cool books are available, 11/24/26.
12.02.2026 15:09 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The president and all his rancid enablers really demand the creation of a new word that means “shocked but not shocked, but still shocked, but also totally NOT shocked, yet somehow still shocked, also always appalled, forever and eternally appalled by the endless abhorrence, and now I scream.”
06.02.2026 12:37 — 👍 460 🔁 68 💬 21 📌 4Editing pro tip: When you use, too many commas, you sound like, William, Shatner.
06.02.2026 12:39 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0What if we just put up a giant sign that says Books
06.02.2026 00:27 — 👍 142 🔁 16 💬 5 📌 5
Official sales numbers as of the end of January...we are closing in on 40K!
04.02.2026 18:53 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0YUP.
04.02.2026 18:30 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Absolutely not trying to make the terrible news of the closure of Washington Post's Books coverage about me or anything, but I cannot stress how bad this is for books. The biggest divide between Big 5 and independent/nonprofit press books is not quality--it's the marketing spend.
04.02.2026 15:30 — 👍 170 🔁 40 💬 3 📌 2
Live footage of me every time I go to fonts.adobe.com to grab "just a couple" fonts for a new @tortoisebooks.bsky.social cover...
26.01.2026 14:06 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
A picture of the cover of the novel Broken Bottles by Anthony Koranda
If you liked the novel #HamOnRye by #CharlesBukowski, you've gotta read this! You're gonna love it!
#AnthonyKoranda #BrokenBottles @tortoisebooks.bsky.social
Very excited to announce I will be discussing my experiences running @tortoisebooks.bsky.social at the @storystudiochicago.bsky.social Pub Crawl! I will now self-censor until then so you can ONLY get my takes at this event...and they will be the hottest and spiciest takes you can imagine.
20.01.2026 17:34 — 👍 9 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 0
Jerks by Sara Lippmann.
Publishing news alert! 🚨Contributor Sara Lippmann's book JERKS was republished from Tortoise Press! buff.ly/Vfv18vR
20.01.2026 22:27 — 👍 11 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
BIG thanks to the fine people at @greenlightbklyn.bsky.social for not only allowing these Jerks into their store, but featuring them prominently! (@saralippmann.bsky.social and @jerrybrennan.bsky.social are most pleased.) Go see them--the jerks and the non-jerks--and maybe take home one of each.
16.01.2026 16:59 — 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Big ups to @saralippmann.bsky.social for ending up on this @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social list of the most-anticipated books of 2026! (And big thanks to @mbwelch.bsky.social and team for the coverage!)
chireviewofbooks.com/2026/01/06/o...
Big ups to @saralippmann.bsky.social for ending up on this @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social list of the most-anticipated books of 2026! (And big thanks to @mbwelch.bsky.social and team for the coverage!)
chireviewofbooks.com/2026/01/06/o...
Among my other fun publisher quirks: when I get a batch of @tortoisebooks.bsky.social that's misprinted juuuuuust enough to not be saleable, but not enough to not be an amazing read, I get a credit from the printer and then disburse them at Little Free Library boxes in West Ridge and Rogers Park.
06.01.2026 14:35 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
December sales are in, and our lifetime total is now 38,766 books sold. Goal for 2026: see how quickly we can get to 40,000. (And 50,000.)
02.01.2026 22:53 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
OK, folks...calling it. All of these, plus a solid number of @tortoisebooks.bsky.social submissions, some of which will be on YOUR lists in 2026, God willing.
Some faves:
Working, Studs Terkel
Jernigan, David Gates
The Country Girls, Edna O'Brien
The Kid Stays In The Picture, Robert Evans
We were getting all set to hustle up votes for the @chicagoreader.com and their Best Of 2025 feature and...they don't have a Best Small Press category this year? They probably didn't want to make all the other presses feel bad by making them compete with us...
22.12.2025 19:38 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Small stack of Hidden River ARCs
psssssssst this jawn
(out in May) @tortoisebooks.bsky.social is now up on edelweiss if anyone wants a free early look www.edelweiss.plus?sku=19651992...
really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense
22.12.2025 14:19 — 👍 15307 🔁 3208 💬 298 📌 123
STUN by Becky Wills tells of a girl coming of age with a workaholic father and a mother addicted to the new prescription drug Stun. She careers through life, education, and sexual discoveries, always feeling alone--until discovering she, too, has a taste for Stun.
www.edelweiss.plus?sku=19651992...
FRANK BUCK: CHICAGO HITMAN by Joseph G Peterson answers the questions nobody asked: What if a hit man was a fat loser who lived in his mom's basement and collected disability checks? And what if you loved him anyway? (NGL, this book will make you cry.)
www.edelweiss.plus?sku=19651992...
HIDDEN RIVER by @saralippmann.bsky.social is about a young woman who gets a wedding invite from her estranged childhood best friend--and is tormented by memories of being groomed by that friend's father.
www.edelweiss.plus?sku=19651992...
Are you on Edelweiss, Gabino? Our Spring 2026 books are all up there. But just so you see them:
19.12.2025 22:46 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Stop expecting answers from books.
Instead just say to yourself
“This will keep me company while I live the question.”
☺️
Thanks for the good vibes! Best wishes for a joyful and prosperous 2026.
(Maybe we do.)
tortoisebooks.com/store/jerks
