I recently made a lovely purchase from Amazon Kindle store: ten cute little guides, collectively known as the wildly popular Toybag Guides, published by (the prolifically awesome) Greenery Press.
Oh, look! Ten little guides, ten weeks between now and the New Year. How convenient! And not at all pre-planned! It's my gift to you: Happy Holidays!
A new concept from Greenery - 4" x 6" quick reference guides you can drop in your toybag for less than $10! Each book contains at least as much information as you could get from a full day's workshop on the topic taught by one of the leaders in the scene - people like Jay Wiseman, Janet Hardy, Midori and John Warren. We'll be bringing out new ones every season. Start your collection now!
There are eleven Guides currently listed on Greenery Press' website. All of the titles begin with the words "The Toybag Guide to ...", and all are written by a different expert within the scene. They all have a wonderfully designed and well integrated cover theme, conveying their uniquely referential viewpoint - see bottom of page.
The Guides are as follows:
The Toybag Guide to ...
- Age Play, by Lee "Bridgett" Harrington
- Basic Rope Bondage, by Jay Wiseman
- Canes and Caning, by Janet W. Hardy
- Clips and Clamps, by Jack Rinella
- Dungeon Emergencies and Supplies, by Jay Wiseman
- Erotic Knifeplay, by Miranda Austin & Sam Atwood
- Foot and Shoe Worship, by Midori
- High-Tech Toys, by John Warren
- Hot Wax and Temperature Play, by Spectrum
- Medical Play, by Tempest
- Playing with Taboo, by Mollena Williams
There are at least two out of print titles I can identify:
- Chastity Play, by Mistress Simone
- Parties and Events, by Lucullus
At this point in time, I have not found any references anywhere in cyberspace to any Toybag Guides but these. The Guide to Parties and Events appears to be the most difficult to find; not even my trusted rare-and-out-of-print book dealers can find a copy. That said, this is also the Guide most susceptible to carrying unusably outdated information (ie, information about parties and events taking place in any given year or city/country). The other out-of-print title, Chastity Play, is much easier to find.
As for the other eleven titles, while I do have them on Kindle, I am currently in the process of collecting them in hard copy. However, during my search, I have learned a few things about books and the interweb. First, is that books being out-of-print is not necessarily an impediment to purchasing them nowadays. The Chastity Play Guide is proving fairly simple to find from several different sellers. However, controversial content will, unsurprisingly, make it almost impossible for a book to be found - the Erotic Knifeplay title is almost nowhere.
Another thing I have learned is about keywords, and Amazon. When using keywords, sometimes not even the most obvious will yield results (eg, "toybag greenery" brought more results, not fewer, than just "toybag", from some bookselling sites). And occasionally, you need to know that what you want is there to be found, so that you don't lose your mind while searching for it (for example, "toybag" in the Kindle store brought only four results, none of which was Medical Play, but "toybag medical" brought up exactly what I was looking for). Another thing is to try several approaches: is your keyword search not working in All Departments or the Books Department? Try just the Kindle Department. There it is!
The bottom line when using Amazon is this: sometimes they don't want you to find it. A search for "toybag" bringing up age play guides, there for all those Christmas-list compiling kidlets to find? A sure way to have the publisher banned from Amazon marketplace altogether, as has allegedly happened in the past. But the book is there. In fact, Amazon.com carries ten of the eleven in-print Guides, all in Kindle format, as long as you search using the "toybag keyword" (ie "toybag taboo" or "toybag dungeon") method. The only in-print it is not currently selling is Basic Bondage, instead throwing up either an error page, or this:
Is it paranoia, or just experience, that has a little voice in my head telling me it's the Morality Brigade at work here? Then again, they are still selling Erotic Knifeplay, so we can't be too upset. It might really just be formatting issues :)
However, there we some good things to come out of my wanderings. My search also led me to a new favourite destination: Revel Books (Greenery Press' favoured seller). I shall be plumbing the depraved depths of their database for future inspiration and possibly some hardcore credit-card flagellation! However, even they are not carrying Foot Worship or Erotic Knifeplay. Why are these the hardest to find, along with High-Tech Toys? I'm not sure, although it's possible it's just because they are the most recently published. (Incidentally, if you are curious as to the most commonly purchased title ... Canes and Caning!)
I also found this. Completely irrelevant, but I just imagine an avid DIY enthusiast's frustration when trying to find this book, and finding instead our beloved sexy disciplinary methods, and it makes me smile:
As always, I welcome and sincerely enjoy feedback and comments, so let me know of your adventures in bookfinding, or anything you happen to know about past, present or future Toybag Guides. What's your favourite?
Until next time!
