Supporting Emerging Writers: How a San Diego Small Business Turned Book Sales Into Community Impact

We did it, you guys. With your help. And our hearts are so, so grateful.

We are beyond excited to finally share this news. At the end of 2025, with the incredible support of our local community (and readers far beyond San Diego), we had $2,783 set aside in our pledge to support emerging authors and artists, plus an additional $216 from 2024 that we’d been holding onto with the quiet hope of making this dream real.

But let’s rewind for a moment.

In 2023, I started You Should Read with a vision that went beyond sharing life-changing books with people who wanted them. Being keenly aware of the systemic inequities within the publishing industry, and watching my creative friends struggle to make their literary voices heard, I wanted to support the dreams of newcomers: writers and creators who don’t yet have big publishing deals, publicists, or the resources to get their work out into the world.

From the beginning, You Should Read committed to allocating 3% of sales to our Emerging Artists Fund, a promise to help bring bold new stories and creative voices to life, and to create a world where every story matters.

That intention became our mission. Our reason for being.
You Should Read – Books as Gifts, with a Cause™

But as a tiny, scrappy startup, and especially while rebuilding our lives and business in a new home base, turning that vision into something tangible felt… big. Sometimes impossible. We were focused on surviving, growing, and staying afloat, trusting that the “how” would eventually reveal itself.

And then, on August 1, 2025, something shifted.

We stumbled into an aligned opportunity to open our retail shop inside the Liberty Station complex. And in a twist that still gives me goosebumps, we learned that our new neighbor is San Diego Writers, Ink – a nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing writers and fostering a literary community in San Diego County and online.

Now, I don’t believe in accidents or coincidences. This felt like destiny in motion. A beautiful synchronicity. The clearest sign yet that the universe was guiding the path towards answers.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: trust the signs and follow them.

With that alignment feeling undeniable, we are incredibly proud (and honestly, a bit emotional) to announce San Diego Writers, Ink as the recipient of our Emerging Artists Fund. We are honored to make this initial donation (combining our 2024 and 2025 raised funds) to support their programming and scholarships for emerging authors.

While we once pondered launching our own nonprofit publishing arm, we realized that partnering with an established organization already doing meaningful, community-driven work would allow us to create impact more thoughtfully and sustainably.

We are deeply grateful to San Diego Writers, Ink for welcoming us into their community, and to all of you who helped make this possible. There would be no You Should Read, and no fund without the generous, gracious, and loving support of our customers nationwide and our community here in San Diego.

I feel incredibly lucky to witness the unfolding of this dream. For Neal and me, it is an absolute honor to pay it forward.

Years ago, I wrote this in my journal, and it became a personal mantra – one that feels truer than ever today:

The world is better when we consume knowledge, not things;
share wisdom, not indifference;
inspire dreams, not desires;
and elevate collective consciousness, not just individual pursuits.

I wholeheartedly believe that the most powerful knowledge in the world lives through the stories we tell, write, and share.

And this is only the beginning!

With a grateful heart,
Yulia Konovnitsyna