by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman
Might 19, 2025
The Litbox’s creator hopes to encourage native readership within the D.C. space.
D.C. has a brand new merchandising machine enterprise that provides a much bigger deal with than sweet.
The “LitBox” offers a brand new technique to discover and buy new reads from native authors simply in time for the summer season. Put in in Washington D.C.’s Western Market, it now reigns as town’s first-ever ebook merchandising machine.
I WAS BORN!!! Thanks everybody! ☺️ Thanks for the purchases, thanks authors! https://t.co/7ebIB535mZ
— Lit Field (@LitBoxBooks) Might 18, 2025
The “LitBox” formally opened for enterprise on Might 17, with 23 novels to select from throughout a wide range of genres. Whether or not one likes image books or romance novels, the “LitBox” is introducing D.C.-based writers to a wider viewers.
The “LitBox” creator, Lauren Woods, needed to discover a new and cost-effective technique to promote native readership within the space. After launching a marketing campaign final fall to deliver the concept from web page to life, Woods reached her $5,000 objective, which allowed her to turn into a micro-business proprietor.
“Most individuals wouldn’t begin a bookstore with simply native authors as a result of they suppose that may by no means be worthwhile. So that is my probability to check that on a extremely small scale,” mentioned Woods to Washingtonian journal.
Whereas the assortment will rotate month-to-month, bestsellers might turn into mainstays within the rollout. Nevertheless, the selection to start out with fictional works was intentional. Woods needed so as to add positivity to a metropolis on the helm of the Trump administration’s divisive insurance policies.
“I need to give writers and other people on this city one thing to really feel enthusiastic about,” she says. “I needed to deliver a bit little bit of optimism into an in any other case bleak second.”
The underside is reserved for youngsters’s novels, providing a brand new decide for Washingtonians of all ages. She hopes the enterprise will encourage her neighborhood and construct a stronger sense of togetherness and empathy.
She added, “Nice literature is actually about empathy and sort of deeply getting exterior of your personal framework and inhabiting one other individual’s consciousness.”
The LitBox had its launch social gathering on Might 17, with a few of its first authors current to attach with the now-evolving D.C. literary scene.
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