Read Local - Hometown Reads Welcome to Hometown Reads! We’re a community dedicated to serving local authors across the country, by helping them connect with readers in their hometown through what we call the Read Local movement. Our site is the first of its kind to organize authors by local community, a design that is intended to facilitate both networking for authors and exposure/connection to more readers.

In 2018, we celebrated two years as a company, and we've launched nearly 100 locations during our existence, resulting in over 4,000 books represented on the site. This year we have development plans to premiere a new homepage design, equip and mobilize Ambassadors in each of our locations, and grow our partnership with like-minded organizations through our Read Local Champions program.

For Authors

We want to showcase your books. As we continue to build a community of local authors, we’ll be sharing book marketing practices and other helpful ideas through our city-specific Facebook groups, as well as our Hometown Authors blog. You will have opportunities to connect and network with other published authors in your hometown. We hope that you’ll find powerful ways to collaborate and learn tools to market your books more effectively to local readers.

If you live in a Hometown not currently showcased on our site and are willing to help us gather authors in your area, please contact us today!

Sign up to be a Hometown Author.

For Readers

We want to help you discover titles written locally by authors in your own community. Our site gives you the chance to find unique books and new authors that you may have never discovered otherwise. If you discover books you love, we hope you’ll share them with others through your social networks and give support to these local authors. As a reader, you are important to the Read Local movement.

Sign up to get updates as a Hometown Reader.

For Local Libraries or Bookstores

If you are a local library or bookstore, we would love to connect with you about our authors and our mission. We have fliers and other resources that we can share with you to get the word out about Hometown Reads. If you are interested in partnering with us to support local authors, please contact us.

While Hometown Reads serves as a digital/virtual bookshelf for authors, we’d love to see bookstores and libraries join and fuel the read local movement by establishing bookshelves to showcase local authors. We envision adding “Buy Local” and “Reserve at Your Local Library” buttons to our shelves to facilitate local readers finding local authors books at their Hometown bookstores and libraries.

Learn More

Hometown Reads is sponsored by Weaving Influence, a full-service digital marketing agency founded by Becky Robinson in 2012. Weaving Influence supports authors and thought leaders in growing influence online and marketing their books. We provide web development, graphic design, social media strategy/implementation, digital publicity, and more.