Top Shelf Shuffle
I'm not sure whether it's just me, but since I've been writing I seem to have developed this masochistic streak. It manifests itself most acutely in my inability to walk past a bookshop without popping in to see if they have my books in stock.
It's a thankless task. If they don't have them, it depresses me. If they do (which to be fair to Harper Collins is increasingly the case) they are more often than not at the back of the shop and displayed spine on, which triggers a renewed bout of angst and soul-searching.
But it also gives rise to that most common of authorial afflictions - the top shelf shuffle.
I'm talking here, of course, about the practice of slipping unnoticed into a bookshop, casually locating your books, and then subtly redeploying them (apart from the one copy you leave behind, face out) at other, more prominent locations. In the chart, for example, or on the Summer Read or Special Offer tables at the front of the store. Anything to get it out in front of the paying public. Ask any writer you know - they're all at it, and they often ropetheir family and friends in too. My wife, for example, once peeled "three for two" labels off someone else's books and then stuck them on mine so she could upgrade me to a special promotion. What a trooper!
It is, of course, a Sisyphean endeavour. No sooner have you carefully (and surreptitiously) moved the books to a new location, then the staff, fired by some strange missionary zeal, scoop them up and cart them back to the familiar obscurity of the general fiction shelf. You'd think eventually they'd just give up, but no - they seem to fight for every inch of those little front tables as if their lives depended on it.
They must get p***ed off by writers coming in and screwing up their displays. In fact I'd be surprised if my local store hadn't performed an exorcism on its crime and thriller section, given the poltergeist-like activity that leads to my books spontaneously materialising twenty feet away from where they are meant to be. Maybe they view it as a game, but to most writers it is a war. A war of attrition where neither side is prepared to give up.
Of course deep down, all writers know that all this skulduggery makes no difference to their sales. We do it, because we are all victims of the random vicissitudes of the publishing world, where neither successes nor failures can be predicted and careers are made or broken on the back of distribution agreements and marketing spend.
Moving the books to the front tables or turning them so that they are face out, is a way of taking a stand. For a few precious minutes, we actually believe we've done something that might help influence our fate. Right up until the shop assistants gather us up and the dance begins again!
It's a thankless task. If they don't have them, it depresses me. If they do (which to be fair to Harper Collins is increasingly the case) they are more often than not at the back of the shop and displayed spine on, which triggers a renewed bout of angst and soul-searching.
But it also gives rise to that most common of authorial afflictions - the top shelf shuffle.
I'm talking here, of course, about the practice of slipping unnoticed into a bookshop, casually locating your books, and then subtly redeploying them (apart from the one copy you leave behind, face out) at other, more prominent locations. In the chart, for example, or on the Summer Read or Special Offer tables at the front of the store. Anything to get it out in front of the paying public. Ask any writer you know - they're all at it, and they often ropetheir family and friends in too. My wife, for example, once peeled "three for two" labels off someone else's books and then stuck them on mine so she could upgrade me to a special promotion. What a trooper!
It is, of course, a Sisyphean endeavour. No sooner have you carefully (and surreptitiously) moved the books to a new location, then the staff, fired by some strange missionary zeal, scoop them up and cart them back to the familiar obscurity of the general fiction shelf. You'd think eventually they'd just give up, but no - they seem to fight for every inch of those little front tables as if their lives depended on it.
They must get p***ed off by writers coming in and screwing up their displays. In fact I'd be surprised if my local store hadn't performed an exorcism on its crime and thriller section, given the poltergeist-like activity that leads to my books spontaneously materialising twenty feet away from where they are meant to be. Maybe they view it as a game, but to most writers it is a war. A war of attrition where neither side is prepared to give up.
Of course deep down, all writers know that all this skulduggery makes no difference to their sales. We do it, because we are all victims of the random vicissitudes of the publishing world, where neither successes nor failures can be predicted and careers are made or broken on the back of distribution agreements and marketing spend.
Moving the books to the front tables or turning them so that they are face out, is a way of taking a stand. For a few precious minutes, we actually believe we've done something that might help influence our fate. Right up until the shop assistants gather us up and the dance begins again!
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Comment
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Comment by Pepper Smith on June 12, 2007 at 2:15pm
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Considering the fact that publishers actually have to pay big bucks for those front table displays, bookstores probably do watch those pretty closely. Are there other prominent places you might try, where they might not be as quick to notice?
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