reviews_and_ramblings | Sometime I wonder if kindness still exists...

Sometime I wonder if kindness still exists...

I own an independent bookstore. It's little, it's beautiful and it's mine. Really from the bookstore I gain very little, my profit is from the connected restaurant-caffetteria, still I struggle to mantain my bookstore. I'm specialized in minor publishers and new authors. When I host an author I post the event on my site, I send for two weeks the newsletter (1000 email address!), I print posters to hang on my bookstore and I send the news to the local newspapers. And I ask nothing to the author or to the publisher: other bookstore ask money to host authors, specially new authors, but I want to give the opportunity to people and writers to meet by person. Most of the time the event has a medium average success, sometime a big success and sometime is a total flop. One week ago I hosted a new author, not very famous, but he has the lucky that his novel was published by a medium important italian publisher. But the event was a disaster: three people, and the author was very pissed. But what could I do? drag the people inside the bookstore? Other times when it happened authors were sorry but they didn't accuse me. Today I discover on the author's website that he has written that I'm an amateur bookseller, that other authors must not trust me, he says "fuck me" (I don't know is this is the exact translation, in italian is a very bad bad expression). I'm angry but I'm also sad: I don't understand why people are so brute and so negative.

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He sounds like a totally egotistical git! Sheesh.

::hugs::

thanks for the hugs. I'm still really sad: and help me know people are not all like him.

What a self centered little son-of-a-bitch. Unless you're Ann Rice or Nora Roberts book signings are a crapshoot no matter what. There was a recent column in the LA paper by a weekly humor writer about his first booksiging. This is a man who reaches over a million readers a day... who pimped his own sigining in his own column... and had like five people show up.

The guy's an idiot. Don't give him the time of day.

Last week I hosted a poet that has asked me to have the possibility to read his poems in my bookstore, has paid his own travel to arrive to my city and has had ten people to his reading, seven of ten friends of the guitarist who play for him. At the end of the reading (remember the attitude of the other writer, and I didn't know what he has written on his site) I say sorry to this guy, and he said to me he was happy, even ten people for him was a success, last time he has had a reading on his own city nobody came.

Sounds like he dissapeared up his own arse for no apparent reason. This annoys me on so many levels. First because it scares me off going for book signing with authors I truely care about and mostly because it does damadge to independent book stores. I ADORE independent book stores and there are not enough of those around... please don't let one nasty individual put you off from running the store. I also love small print publications so I think what you are doing is great!

thanks. it's not simple, many people say to me not to organize event with small authors, and also to try to open my bookstore to titles of more success, but I opened my bookstore because it is my dream, and I always hope that if I like what I do, also other people like it.

He's an idiot.

He got his ego dented, and he'd rather blame you than face the fact that author appearances are generally pretty low turnout unless the author is a superstar.

I have friends who are medium to big names in the sf field, and their experience is that they're lucky if they get twenty people. Some of them won't do readings at all, because they find it so depressing when only three people turn up. If you want, I could dig up some posts in rec.arts.sf.composition where people were talking about this.

But some authors have unrealistic expectations. They're published, they've got an appearance, so obviously they're important and lots of people will turn up. They hear the stories about the queues around the block for the really big stars like Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling (sorry, don't know of Italian equivalents) and think that's what they're going to get. And it's a let-down when they meet reality.

everytime I organize an event I love to make it. Send the newsletter, hang up the poster, and every every time when the time is near and I see people enter the bookstore and sit on the chair in front of the authors my smile is like a cat who eat the mouse. And I'm always sad when nobody arrives. One time an author has had only one person, but he is a very gentle old man and so, to excuse myself, I offer to him and to that only people a good glass of wine and the two has spent on hour chatting on a table of my coffeshop.

Argh! That's awful darling. It's REALLY not your fault and completely unfair.

thanks. I wrote to him, in private, to say that I will not reply to him online, on my site, because sure my site has many visitors than him and I don't want to make advertising to him. I post this on my LJ because I was sad and all you guys are wonderful. thanks.

Please don't let this one idiot stop you from hosting signings. He probably sat there waiting for people to admire him instead of standing up and talking to everyone who came by--talking about things other than himself and his book.

thanks. I know he is an idiot, but I'm still surprised that he blame me for that: I have really made everything unless pay people to come.

In no way should you feel saddened hon. Some writers feel entitled and don't realize that promo opportunities are a BIG thing, even if the only person who attends is the store owner or event planner. Why? Because at least that means that they have one person in their corner.

I am a firm believer in being humble where friends and fans and promo events are concerned. I would be happy that a bookseller had even hung fliers promoting my book more or less holding a reading.

If anything he should be glad that you tried to help him.

thanks. after all your kind words I begin to be a little less sad and start thinking he is wrong. one little part of me really was replaying all I have made to find where I have made something wrong. maybe I'm not.

people are all about themselves, honey. He felt like he'd written the best book ever, and no one came to buy it. How could that be his fault? ;) Just remember that sometimes bad publicity is just as good at getting people in your door!

maybe his book is good (I didn't read it, not my genre) but after know him, sure I will not reccomend it. I have in my bookstore every books I hosted and they are in plain sight on dedicate bookshelfs. Every books unless one: even if he will become the next Tolstoj, I never again will put his books on my bookshelfs.

even if he will become the next Tolstoj, I never again will put his books on my bookshelfs

Don't worry--with his attitude, he will never become the next anybody.

Shouldn't the event be just as much an effort on the writer's part as it is on yours? You can only do so much in getting people to come to your store. What in heck did he do to help promote his own book event?

I wouldn't be surprised if he did absolutely squat. If I were set up for an event, I'd be enlisting all my friends and my family and their friends and their families to help me get the word out (not to mention show up at the event).

Absolutely he didn't do nothing. He is not from my city (two hours train away) and when he arrived he also didn't have a place to sleep the night. So I contacted a beautiful little and cheap guesthouse I know and asked as favor to me for a room, even if at last minute. Fortunately I didn't pay it, but unfortunately the place is too good for him and I'm sorry to have sent a guy like him to my friends.

I'd say it does look like the gentleman was in the wrong. There really are no guarantees how many people will show up, unless he actually had specific fans near your area.

Write it off as a loss and continue what you're doing. I would hope more authors are grateful and make it worthwhile. One sour grape shouldn't spoil the bunch.

NO, is not from my area, but like I have some faithful customers who sometime arrive even if they don't know the author. But that day only three, and they are customers of the caffetteria who stop by.

Um... okay, you gave this sorry SOB time, space, and advance publicity, but he only had three people show up? He doesn't have more than three friends or family members who were willing to show up and support him? What did he expect from you, a ready-made fan club?

It sounds like he probably treats everybody the way he treated you... otherwise he'd have friends who were willing to come to your shop and celebrate his success.

I have a suggestion: write a letter to his publisher. Explain what you just told us: that you give promotional opportunities free of charge, that Mr Ego is vilifying you in public... and send them the url of his obnoxious post (you might want to make a cache-copy of the page, in case he changes it.)

Ask the promotions manager of his publisher if they can "encourage" him to take down this offensive post. Not only does it make him look bad, it makes the publisher look bad.

If you want to get a bit tough with them, or if they don't respond to a polite request, you might hint that since their writer is so downright ungracious, in the future you will have to charge them for promotional opportunities.

This jerk isn't worth wasting time on. Go over his head. The publisher needs to know they're subsidizing an offensive idiot.

Good luck, hon!

Yes a made a copy of the page but only to remember what he wrote and to see if, after I write to him in pirvate, he will change it. My friends say I have to ask my lawyer to send him a letter: the words he has written are really offensive.

He's obviously full of himself for being published. I've seen book signings in big US stores like Barnes & Noble where you get a handful of readers stop by. You can't guarantee a turnout. No one can. It's just the way it is. The asshole should know better!

Hugs to you,
Shayla

My friend says to me that the same author has had another book signing some weeks ago, and also in that case was a flop, and he payed for the place. So now I understand that he is his fault and not mine.

After you've written a book and found someone willing to publish it... and then discovering that you have to go out there and be a salesman ... that's the worst part of being published, I think. People who like to write are usually people who like to sit quietly by themselves and make up stories. To push youself to go out and do it, and then have hardly anyone show up... yes, it's discouraging! But after you gave him the space and found him a room, to go online and beat you up for it--doesn't he realize that any other bookseller who reads that is going to treat him like he's got a case of the plague? It isn't just mean to you, it's damned foolish.

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Sometime I wonder if kindness still exists...

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