A Complement of Scoundrels is officially out in the world!

That is an extremely exciting sentence for me to type. Our imprint’s first release and S.V. Lockwood's debut book is an actual physical object that people can buy and read and sniff and put on their shelves.

Some of you have asked what you can do to help the book now that it's out, so I wanted to put together some ideas. Obviously you can post about it, share the stuff I post, and be feral about it in Discord. But there are also a bunch of very simple, low-effort things that can genuinely help A Complement of Scoundrels keep finding readers after release week.

1. Recommend It When Someone Is Already Looking for a Book

This is probably the easiest one. If you see somebody asking for fantasy recommendations and Scoundrels actually fits what they're looking for, throw it into the conversation.

Fantasy heists, criminal crews, found family, revenge, steampunk. Are they fans of The Lies of Locke Lamora, Six of Crows, Arcane, Ocean's Eleven? If someone is looking for any of that, throw Scoundrels into the mix. And that can be anywhere people are talking books: Reddit, Facebook groups, Threads, Discord, TikTok comments, whatever weird little corner of the internet you happen to live in.

2. Put It Up for Your Book Club

If you're in a book club, buddy read, Discord reading group (other than ours, you hussy), whatever, toss Scoundrels into the voting pool. One of the coolest possible outcomes of publishing this thing is seeing little pockets of people reading and talking about it completely independently of me.

3. Text the One Friend You Know Would Like It

This sounds incredibly obvious, but personal recommendations are still one of the biggest reasons I pick up books. You know your friends (and how to manipulate them). If you read Scoundrels and immediately thought, “oh, this weirdo would love this,” send it to that weirdo.

4. Work It Into the Book Content You're Already Making

For the creators in here, you of course do not need to make a dedicated five-minute video about A Complement of Scoundrels.

BUT, if you're already doing:

• September reads

• recent fantasy releases

• books you read this month

• fantasy heist recommendations

• underrated fantasy

• indie fantasy

• books that deserve more hype

… just include it when it makes sense.

Carousels, wrap-ups, reading vlogs, shelf tours, recommendation videos. Those little appearances add up.

5. Make Something Weird About It

A Spotify Playlist, character art, fancast, a stupid meme that only cool people like us understand, an outfit inspired by one of the characters, a bookmark, pictures of your cat with glasses on reading it etc etc

6. Review It Somewhere

This is one I really want to add because it requires basically nothing and can make quite a difference. If you've finished Scoundrels, rate or review it wherever you normally track your reading.

Goodreads. StoryGraph. Audible. The retailer where you bought it. Wherever. It doesn't need to be five stars. Please don't give the book a fake glowing review because you like me (or a one star because you secretly loathe and resent me). Just give it an honest one.

For a debut author and an independent publisher, having actual readers leaving actual reactions gives somebody discovering the book six months from now a much better idea of whether it's for them.

Even a rating with no written review helps establish that yes, people have in fact read this strange and beautiful object we released into society.

7. Request It From Your Library

This is another really easy one that I think people forget about. If your library takes purchase requests, request A Complement of Scoundrels (you can also hit “Notify Me” on Libby and that provides a signal to them). Libraries buying books is good! Libraries putting books in front of readers who would never otherwise encounter them is also good!

8. Ask Your Local Bookstore About It

Same idea. If you have a local indie bookstore you love, asking whether they carry A Complement of Scoundrels or whether they can order it helps put the title on their radar. Please do not menace your local bookseller on my behalf. I know it will be hard for some of you, but a normal human interaction will suffice.

Booksellers discovering a book because customers keep asking about it is exactly the sort of grassroots thing that can help a book’s success snowball.

9. If You See It in the Wild, Face It Out

This one is both helpful and gives you the opportunity to feel like you're committing a very minor crime, unless you’re used to committing crimes, which, please don’t make us accessories to them (looking at you, Lyss).

A Complement of Scoundrels is already showing up in plenty of Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million stores, so if you happen to spot it on a shelf, face that bad boy out. Books with their covers facing outward are obviously a whole lot more noticeable than books where you're just staring at the spine (even though the spine is gorg), especially for somebody who has absolutely no idea what Scoundrels is yet. This is particularly true because of John Gwynne’s lovely blurb on the front cover, which instantly gives it credibility.

You do not need to reorganize an entire display, build a shrine, or get yourself banned from Barnes & Noble (which would be good content tbh). Just a little turn of the wrist.

10. Pass Your Copy Along

If you're finished with your copy and you're not somebody who hoards books like a dragon, let someone else read it. Give it to a friend or family memeber, drop it into a li’l free library. A book changing hands five times is five potential readers who now know the wrinkly-brained S.V. Lockwood exists.

I am extremely pro-book-hoarding personally and will be buried with my TBR, so I will not judge you if this is impossible, especially if your name is on the Thank You page.

11. It’s the Season for Gifting

We are entering the part of the year where everybody suddenly remembers they need to buy things for other human beings. If you know somebody who loves heists, revenge stories or just really doggone great fantasy books, maybe A Complement of Scoundrels belongs under their tree.

Books are also particularly good gifts because they're very easy to wrap and make you look thoughtful, even though all of us in the Discord know better.

Seriously, Thank You

I know I say this a lot, but I don't think I can really overstate how much all of you have already done for this book.

A “Kist Reads” imprint was a big goal of mine when joining Bindery and all of you made that happen. There is a real book sitting on people's shelves with Kist Reads printed on it. Somebody is looking at my picture in the back of the book and thinking “who is this pretentious fuck”, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted.

That's also because S.V. Lockwood wrote a damn good book and a whole bunch of people worked behind the scenes to turn that manuscript into the finished thing.

Now it's about helping the book find people who have absolutely no idea who I am. So keep talking about it! Keep recommending it when it makes sense. Keep posting your pictures and reviews. Get it into libraries and bookstores and book clubs and the hands of whatever friend you know is susceptible to a crew of goblins.

And if you've got another good, bonkers idea for getting A Complement of Scoundrels in front of new readers, drop it in the comments or bring it into the Discord. Let's see how far we can push this thing, HUZZAH!