Five Years and Evolving

The first post on this site was five years ago. I only noticed by accident, to be honest, possibly lockdown boredom driving me to glance back at the early days of Dirty Sexy Words.

There have certainly been a few changes since the beginning, and I suppose it’s fair to say things are still evolving.

Some people have a pretty good idea of what they want to do when they start a blog, some make it up as they go along; most find there comes a point where they are evolving from their earlier state.

At the start of 2016 I was running fairly regular erotica slams, writing and editing, and only intermittently selling books at events. Over the next couple of years, I gradually made my way back to bookselling: stocking other people’s work as well as my own, vintage classics, new and interesting anthologies and various how-to guides devoted to rope, spanking and BDSM relationships.

This time last year, I had various Cunning Plans: DSW would be evolving further, the bookselling becoming the main focus, with a better range of titles and an eye on new and upcoming authors and publishers. Then, well, you know, Covid-19.

Many small businesses have had to adapt over the past year, most given little or no support by this government of gangsters and incompetents. Some have been luckier than others: most of us have suffered in some way, whether employer or employee, young or old, whether our sufferings have been due to the virus itself, or the malevolent, ideologically-driven neglect of public wellbeing by our alleged rulers. It’s still almost impossible to predict what lies ahead, even with the vaccine rollout. We do what we can, and we keep evolving, all of us, because we have to.

Don’t forget to check out the bookshop before you go.