What a wondrous world we make when creativity meets community.
NOCTERRA BOOKERY
SINCE 2025
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Nocterra Bookery is a bookstore and tea shop dreamed up by indie authors who know the struggle of getting their worlds placed on the shelves. Our dream is to create a bridge where authors and readers can meet and open up worlds which are often untapped and overlooked by the limits of traditional publishing.
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Books are for everyone. Not just every reader, but for everyone who has a story to tell; a voice to be heard.
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Kansas City has a thriving literary community, and no shortage of amazing independent bookstores--each with their own niche, their own flavor. With Nocterra, we hope to join their ranks not just to help fill a gap in the Independence area, but to be one of the first shops in the city to not just accept indie authors--as many of our other bookstore friends do--but to maintain a primary focus on independent authors, artists, and creators.
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That is our niche. Our flavor of bookstore. A specific flavor profile in a buffet of literary delicacies.
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Step Inside And Discover The
MaGic WitHin tHe PaGEs
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Meet the Owners
Melissa and Chelsea have been writing stories together for nearly two decades, and have officially published one of many of those stories in September 2024 under their co-authorship, Madison Chase. Self-publishing, for them, wasn't a last ditch effort after countless rejections along the traditional route. It was a business decision. One many independent authors have consciously made to protect their voice, their worlds, and have control over their artistic expression.
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Kansas City has a thriving community of these independent authors; each of them having made the same choice for one motive or another, all of them taking on the workload, the financial burden, and the exhaustive roles most traditional authors have taken care of by their publishing team. In the later half of 2025, Melissa and Chelsea joined the volunteer board of KC Book Beat, a local nonprofit whose mission is all about connecting local authors with readers and opportunities and uplifting the Kansas City voice, whether it be author, artist, or any other KC small business. One thing they learned during the many events they have helped run, or simply attended with fellow writers (whether a KCBB or otherwise), is that the book community in KC is a phenomenal collective of voices who deserve to be heard.
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