Although I don’t generally reprint e-mails, I hear about this often enough that I thought I’d take the opportunity to answer it generally. I doubt the letter writer will mind:
Yesterday, I went to the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa to look for Tong Lashing. When I asked in Waldenbooks about it, the clerk said, “Oh, we only order it on special order.” When I asked why, he replied “Well, they don’t sell as well as his Star Trek books.” I went upstairs to the B. Dalton and got a similar spiel about only ordering it on special order. So my question is… is it better to encourage one of these places to stock your books in the future by placing a special order with them…. or is it better to “punish” them by giving my business to a store that did bother to stock it?
Yes, welcome to the glamorous life of a successful author, where branch buyers and clerks create self-fulfilling prophecies by not ordering or stocking your books and then saying they don’t sell.
As annoying as it may be, the truth is that yes, the only way to encourage stores to carry my books is to special order them, because they keep track of what people order and adjust accordingly. They can’t keep track of it when you get annoyed and just order it off Amazon.
Understand, it’s not your job to try and reeducate bookstores. You don’t want to wait for the week or two it’ll take for a special order, I understand. But if folks are asking me what’s “better” (meaning, presumably, what benefits my career) then yes, special ordering the book is preferable.
PAD
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