Fiction and Friction is winning hearts and minds – and changing an industry
Brittany Schulz’ love affair with books is propelling her into the stratosphere of the romance fiction industry – all from a little shopfront in Murray Bridge.
This sponsored story is brought to you by Fiction and Friction.
It’s one of the Murraylands’ best-kept secrets, yet it’s hidden in plain sight on Murray Bridge’s main street.
Independent bookstore Fiction and Friction has quickly developed a cult following since its establishment in 2020.
Its proprietor, Brittany Schulz, is the exemplar of a generation of women who came of age reading Twilight: they might cringe about that particular title now, but it opened their eyes to a kaleidoscope of romance fiction, to kindred spirits who bond at conventions and on social media, and to a hashtag that is turning the publishing industry on its head: #booktok.
Fiction-lovers had been finding each other and discovering new reads online long before COVID-19, but video-sharing apps like TikTok have helped the trend blossom into a phenomenon.
Fiction and Friction has more than 60,000 followers on the platform.
“You meet people in the comments section … you go ‘I also love this author’, then you’re friends on Facebook, then six months later you rock up to an event and you’re instantly friends with 10 people,” Britt says.
“It’s such a mind-blowing thing.”
For the BookTok community, compelling stories are essential, no niche is too niche, and the vibe – the aesthetic – has to be just right.
It hits you as soon as you open Fiction and Friction’s front door at 49A Bridge Street, Murray Bridge: the name signed in neon, the faux vines, the bookmarks and pins and literary knick-knacks, and the books themselves, on every side.
Where others might binge-watch a TV show or scroll through Instagram reels, Britt would rather spend her hours leisurely leafing through a romance novel.
Let’s be clear, though: these aren’t your grandparents’ romances, nor are they all brainless erotic fiction.
“Before COVID … there was absolutely a stigma: ‘oh you read romance books – you mean, like Mills and Boons?’” Britt says.
“It is similar, but it’s not the same thing.”
Nowadays, if you want to find a book about a single mum who is reconnecting with the one-night stand who unknowingly fathered her baby, or a hunk who turns into a dragon, or any other oddly specific desire, you can.
Fiction and Friction is built for that – its appeal is that Britt has set it up with wholly separate rooms for different sub-genres of romance fiction.
In a light, airy room are your contemporary romances: sports players, cowboys and billionaires.
The shadowy room next to it, the one with a black-and-white wall mural and shelf after shelf of black-covered, gold-lettered tomes is for dark romance: the violent and vengeful.
Up the back is the fantasy and paranormal room, cosy and colourful, filled with vampires, werewolves and all manner of seductive fairytale creatures.
Fiction and Friction's Murray Bridge store features separate rooms for different genres. Photos: Peri Strathearn.
Instead of pandering to multinational publishing houses, Fiction and Friction stocks only independent and self-published authors.
And instead of urging people to make a purchase or get out, Britt goes the other way – there is comfy seating in every room, to encourage you to read a few pages or a chapter so you know you’ll enjoy the book you take home.
“People don’t want to come here, get their books and leave; they want to spend the whole day here,” she says.
“If you just want to come in, sit down, or if you want to buy a book and sit in here and read it, that’s okay.
“I’m not going to follow you around and say ‘do you need something?’”
Those who can’t afford to make a purchase can grab something from a freebie shelf in the foyer, or just stay a while and soak up the atmosphere.
It smells like a bookshop.
Fiction and Friction even stages the occasional event.
The store will host a signing session and Q&A with author T.L. Swan at the Bridgeport Hotel from 6pm on September 6; tickets are just over $40 and include a drink on arrival and a copy of her new novel, The Bonus.
On October 12, more than 100 authors and vendors, and hundreds of readers, are expected at an indie book convention at Adelaide Convention Centre; tickets start at $80 and include a canvas tote bag, map and bookmark.
Britt’s love affair with reading started with the Rainbow Magic series in primary school, when she had dibs on every new instalment that arrived at the library.
It continued when her nana got her a copy of Twilight, and when a friend lent her Fifty Shades of Gray soon after the birth of her daughter.
So she had always been bookish, and a bit creative.
She started selling bookmarks and things on Etsy, and had the idea of stocking a few books, too – obscure ones, the sort you’d have to wait weeks for Amazon to ship from the US or UK, only for them to arrive bent or damaged.
She started reaching out to authors, asking if they’d be interested in supplying to an online store that would only sell indie books, with maybe five copies of each title.
Nothing similar existed in Australia, so she figured it was either a fantastic idea or a terrible one.
It didn’t take her long to figure out which.
“I’ll never forget,” she says.
“As soon as the website went live, the orders started rolling in – my Shopify notifications wouldn’t stop dinging.”
“I sold almost all of that stock within half an hour.”
The business boomed, to the point that she had to rent a storage unit in 2021 so she’d have somewhere to keep the stock that was overflowing out of her flat.
In 2022, figuring that her warehouse might as well be open to the public, she rented a space on Seventh Street, Murray Bridge.
Six months later, as she came back from a show in Sydney with 255 boxes of books, she realised she had outgrown that, too.
That point was further driven home when almost 300 people attended her first event, a gathering of about 40 authors and vendors at the Adelaide Convention Centre late last year.
Fiction and Friction opened its Bridge Street store on April 13, 2024.
For Britt, the feeling was slightly surreal – during a previous chapter of her life, she had worked in the same building as a photographer’s assistant.
“It kind of feels like full circle,” she says.
“I didn’t ever think I’d own a business.
“But I walked up the ramp and I could see the genre rooms, I could see people sitting down, having a coffee, reading books.”
Can you see yourself at Fiction and Friction?
Head down to 49A Bridge Street, Murray Bridge sometime and find out.
- Opening hours: Visit Fiction and Friction from 1-6pm on Thursdays, 1-5pm on Fridays and 12-4pm on weekends.
- Book a ticket to an event: For the book signing and Q&A with T.L. Swan in Murray Bridge, click here. For the indie book convention in Adelaide, click here.
- More information: Visit www.fictionandfriction.com.au or follow Fiction and Friction on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or Threads.
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Peri Strathearn
