Partner Spotlight is a series designed to highlight the vendors that partner with ABA to offer discounted products, services, and business opportunities to ABA members. Each installment, we interview a different partner to learn more about their organization and why indie bookstores matter to them.
Indigo Maiden is a brand that specializes in stickers and other gift items that deliver their radical values with humor and unique style.
Bookselling This Week spoke with Indigo Maiden's founder, Heather MacMillan, to learn more about the company.
Bookselling This Week: Why don't we start with a little bit about the brand? Tell me about Indigo Maiden.
Heather MacMillan: Yeah! Indigo Maiden is a sticker and gift brand. I like to say we blend snarky humor with radical values (that probably shouldn't be considered so radical).
We sell stickers, but we also do bookmarks, tote bags, gift bags, enamel pins — a little bit of everything across the gifting space.
We really focus on messages with our product, whether that's inspiring nostalgia or standing up for social issues. It really helps people to share their values in a way that feels authentic and also hopefully comes across well. Humor just helps things go down a little bit better, I think.
BTW: Indigo Maiden had an item in our welcome bag for Winter Institute 2025, so some of our booksellers will already know the name and brand. Are you the founder of Indigo Maiden? What prompted you to start this company?
HM: Yeah, I am the founder. I design some of the products and I work with independent artists and designers for the rest of them.
I would love to have an inspiring story about how I started Indigo Maiden, but to be entirely honest, I was watching a lot of TikTok during the pandemic. For some reason, sticker shops and sticker businesses were coming across my feed and it became a hyperfixation. I already had the equipment for it, I could just do it on a whim.
And it took off.
BTW: Do you work with a lot of bookstores already?
HM: I do, yeah.
Most of my business is wholesale, which means that I sell products to other independent businesses. While I sell to a little bit of everybody — boutiques, museums, or cafes — the majority of my retailers are bookstores. They're honestly my favorite retailers to work with.
BTW: What's different about bookstores?
HM: Booksellers are very approachable and down to earth.
I also feel like a lot of them are very similar to me. I get along well with them. We’re all a bunch of book nerds.
Bookselling This Week: Do you have anything new or exciting coming up that you want people to know about?
HM: We have a couple of really exciting new products that we just launched.
One of them I drew and designed from scratch: a book review sticky notepad. This kind of thing already exists, but I had opinions and wanted to do my own.
It has start and finish dates, and space to share your favorite scene, favorite quotes, and star ratings — not just for overall review, but also tears or spice level.
I'm really excited about it, and it’s already doing pretty well.
We’ve also launched book plates — again, a thing that already exists, but that I wanted to do in my own style.
These book plates have a place for your name, but also the date that you added it to your library, and the date that you read it, because I love keeping track of that kind of stuff.
BTW: What have you been reading lately?
HM: I’ve been reading Mai Corland’s The Broken Blades series.
I just started the third book in the series, Three Shattered Souls, on Libro.fm.
I recommend the audiobook especially, because there are several main characters and they all have a different voice actor, which I really like.
I listen to a lot of audiobooks while working — we're very, very big supporters of audiobooks and e-books here.
BTW: You said you’ve been working with outside designers. Do you have a core team in-house or is it just you?
HM: In-house, it's just me. I have some go-to artists that I usually work with. We do license some designs that are already publicly available, but I have been working with more artists and designers on exclusive designs because we want to continue to be unique.
I have a full-time assistant who helps fulfill orders and make some of the product, and my sister-in-law and my partner both help me when I do ABA shows or regional shows.
We're looking to expand the team a little bit this year, maybe with another studio assistant and somebody to help with customer service. So we're really growing this year!
BTW: So, our booksellers can visit you at the regional shows?
HM: Not every single show. My sister-in-law just went to NVNR.
I'll be at Mountains and Plains in Denver, Heartland in Indianapolis (that’s my local show!), and the Pacific Northwest show in Spokane.
BTW: Then interested members should definitely visit you there! Is there anything else that you really want our booksellers to know?
HM: We really like working closely with our retailers. We love getting product feedback — whether there's something that really works well or doesn't!
We like to practice what we preach with our values, so your feedback is so important to us. We love to hear it. We love the conversations. [You] are always welcome to reach out.
ABA members are eligible for 10% off orders over $200. Visit the ABA Partners page for more details.