Book Madam recently published a post by a young adult author responding to a piracy lament with one of her own. Filed under the heading “things that make you go hmmm“:
- showing up for signings and hearing that an otherwise in-stock title has been on order for weeks;
- being unable to bring your own books and have them count toward legitimate sales;
- doing author tours for a second book at stores that haven’t been able to complete orders for the first one; and
- taking weeks to get an online order fulfilled.
If publishers care about bookstores, they have to do better than that. Even the record business has come to understand that people want to buy songs they like as soon as they hear them on the radio.
We need to find ways to fulfill demand, not frustrate it. In pursuit of that, small things matter.
