Life's Little Annoyances

[ellenkushner]

People asking "Where can I buy your books?"

What on earth do they mean by that?

Where do we usually buy books, folks?

This is particularly annoying in the age of internet, where, even when they're self-published, the answer is always "Amazon."

Comments

[ninstorage.livejournal.com]

Well doh. My first answer was going to be "bookstore". Then I saw the "Amazon" in fine print. I'm obviously slow :)

[teriegarrison.livejournal.com]

My *mother* used to ask me this question all the time. I'm not sure she understands even now that my books are *not* self-published. After all, I'm just, yanno, her daughter. :-) Bless her to bits, but still!

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Well, I can speak from experience that the truck stop outside Cassellton, ND (by the family farm) doesn't carry 'em. Refrigerator magnets of apparently transvestite bison, however...

[theloa.livejournal.com]

I've seen your books in several bookstores here in Iceland (even though I bought mine on Amazon). So... uh... you can tell them that.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

People sometimes need to be told that if they're buying my buttons (http://www.nancybuttons.com), it doesn't matter where I live, at least so far as the first world is concerned.

This suggests that people haven't emotionally assimilated the idea of a postal service yet. It's probably a little much to expect them to remember the internet.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

If they mean "right this minute or tomorrow morning" it's because they want you to say "Bob's, two blocks away" kind of thing. This would require you to know who has your books in stock, everywhere. Hmmm, tricky.

There are a lot of people who still haven't shopped at Amazon. And I think a lot of people go into bookstores and see only the face-out displays. They don't realize that the bookstore (unless it's a Borders, say, or a specialist) will order anything they can think of that's in print for them, if they ask.

They are not on sale at the theater, I take it... maybe next year...?

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

possibly they ask in case you are soon to be doing a signing, or would like to support local businesses, or you know of some sparkly lovely edition being printed someplace? i personally have a plurality of "privilege of the sword" for the last two reasons....

[twistedsheets10.livejournal.com]

My first thought was the bookstore, aha, because I'm too technologically inept for Amazon. :(

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

My mother seems to think that all authors are celebrities. On a few occasions, I've mentioned things that happened in online conversations with one author or another, and she always expresses disbelief that it could have possibly been the real author in question. Authors are too famous-y and busy writing books to be on the internet! It must have been somebody pretending to be them.

[teriegarrison.livejournal.com]

LOL! I wonder what she'd make of this 'chat', then, me being an author whom I bet neither you nor she ever even heard of before. Does that make me real? Or not real? Or am I pretending to be me? Or am I me pretending to be an author? Or what? :-D (Wow. This just took a existential turn, didn't it?)

[coppervale.livejournal.com]

The one that gets me:

"What do you do?"

"I'm an author."

"Published?"

:/

[bibliofilen.livejournal.com]

This is insane but probably intended to be polite small talk. Those people are probably trying to prove that their interest in your work is genuine and that they actually read books and will read yours too. They are just very stupid about it.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. :)

In defense...

[isabelswift.livejournal.com]

Well, some call it "Bus Drivers Syndrome." (see prior post on the subject: http://isabelswift.livejournal.com/14544) It's easy to find--if you know where & how to look, what the categories are, what the right questions are, what the answers mean. But for some, book buying--it's an undiscovered land.

And the Amazon is a big river. If you didn't already know where to go on line, would you know how to find a book in Amazon? Which Navi-bar to check? Right or left side? Select for books? Can you just put an author's name in the box? What if someone has the same title, what will come up? Really there is a lot of sh*t to wade through--you just don't see it anymore because you've done it a million times. I know it seems obvious, but you try walking into a B&N superstore & think about where on earth you are supposed to even begin to look for your niece Fifi's book. Fiction? Literature? A-Z? Hardcover? Paperback? Fantasy? YA? Maybe that store categorizes things in a different way....And maybe you don't want to ask the harried clerk (if you can even find one) and you don't know how to use the computer info terminal. Maybe it's all just an exercise in humiliation and frustration. As movingfinger notes, they just want to be pointed to a guaranteed good time, and that's not easy.

If you're in the business of selling books, do think about how clueless someone can be & still find your work. Preaching to the choir isn't going to convert anyone.

[dryfoo.livejournal.com]

You could take it as an opportunity to get oddly over-specific, like "Try the Fantasy section of any bookstore, or the SF & Fantasy section, snuggled all nice and kentucky right in between Kurtz & Lackey."

[dyfferent.livejournal.com]

Ebay or Waterstones.

Re: In defense...

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with this.

Sadly, reading has become a specialized niche activity in the eyes of a lot of people, and it's a whole culture that they are unfamiliar with.

Re: In defense...

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Amazon's front page and interface have become unnavigable for anyone not an expert in Internet web page elaboration. It needs to be simplified, possibly to a Google-like one-line search box. Last month I tried to walk a novice through an Amazon order and it was impossible---there was too much extraneous, too much irrelevant, and too many things to explain.

And don't get me going on accessibility for the visually disabled...at Amazon and everywhere else...

[rosefox]

At least you don't get people telling you you're not a real writer because you don't write fiction.

[coppervale.livejournal.com]

LOL! No, but I got it a lot in comics.

"So, you're not like a real writer, because all you have to write is the stuff in the little balloons."

Because, you know, the pictures just appear out of thin air.

[rosefox]

The other night while out with friends, we were figuring out who at the table was or wasn't involved in writing and publishing. I was labeled "not a writer" and had to speak up very sharply.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Internet(ABEbooks, B&N, rarely Amazon, small privately owned presses that are online), Barnes and Noble brick and morter stores, small locally owned bookstores...

[calimac.livejournal.com]

When Lin Carter wrote his book on the history of fantasy, he got letters asking him who wrote this "Arabian Nights" thing he referred to, and where they could find it.

What I wonder is, how did people that slow figure out where to write him?

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

Maybe they're hoping you'll pull a book out of your pocket and offer to give it to them and autograph it right then and there.

Re: In defense...

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. Even supposedly savvy sf/f bookbuyers can be completely flumoxed if their favorite author's latest book happens to be YA.