It Just Goes To Show You That Even A 4 Star Review In People Magazine Doesn't Mean Shit To The Kid In Charge Of Ordering Your Books

I was catching up on some back issues of People -- my main source for news and commentary about people finding Jesus whilst fighting for life in Iraq, in a raft off of New England, or beneath an overpass in Chicago -- when I stumbled on a glowing review of Steve Almond's new book The Evil BB Chow and other stories. How cool, I thought, someone who wrote a story about Michael Jackson's dick filling the pages of the magazine versus stories about Michael Jackson's actual dick. Plus, I really liked the book and found the guy to be, well, swell when I met him. Shit, I thought, how many units do you move when you're reviewed in People? So I went to Steve's website to see what was happening on his Tour Diary and found this post:

The following stats sponsored by the Department of Why Chain Bookstores Suck

• Largest Audience: 220 (for a short story panel at the LA Times Book Festival)
• Number of copies of BB Chow supplied by Border's after the panel: 0
• Excuses offered by Border's employees: 7

If there is one thing I have learned in my travels across this vast and wonderful land, it is this: no matter how popular your book, no matter how fantastic the reviews, no matter how important you're feeling because you've got your name on the spine of a book, invariably it all boils down to the 17 year old kid in the back of the store who happens to be in charge of ordering books. This guy is normally named Lance or Cameron or Dax or Tiff or Topher or Paulo or Rain. He wears a lot of black. He listens to old Cure albums, back before they really made it, back when they were keeping it real, singing about Camus and shit. He reads a lot of stuff by dead Russians. He's depressed. He has a profile on MySpace and he's all about finding truth and wisdom. He's also probably banging the assistant manager, because that job in the back pays a little more than a job at the front of the house. He's in a band, and he's got fliers to prove it. He's a little pissed at his parents because, like, they want him to pay for part of his schooling but he's, like, not even really interested in school and, like, it's all about truth and wisdom and did Joss Whedon even go to school? And he knows he's supposed to order your books for that big ass event, or he knows you're coming into his store sometime and while he'd like to order your books, would really prefer not to be yelled at for it later when someone (like, say, my wife) comes in and screams at everyone because the books for the author waiting in the cafe are nowhere to be found, he's, like, totally late to meet his friend who has the fake ID and promised to get him a 12 pack of Keystone.

Your life as a writer on tour basically boils down to a trusting a kid who couldn't get a job at Hot Topic to do the right thing.

If you're not sure yet what this person looks like, here's a picture that might help:

Comments

[Jim Winter]

Ah, yes! The infamous Chainstore black hole. My first store signing took place in Dayton. My publisher sent me the UPS tracking number. The district manager confirmed the books arrived. I show up in Dayton (an hour away). No books. The asst. mgr in charge looks at the newsletter. The asst. mutters something under his breath about throttling the store manager, who apparently quit that weekend and forgot to tell the staff an author was coming.

Publisher, who's wife works for said chain, said, "Yeah, they do that all the time. They even did it to James Patterson."

[Clair Lamb]

The one and only time I did the author-escort thing, I quickly learned that this is Job #1: call each and every place ahead of time to make sure they have the books. Call a week ahead of time, call again three days ahead of time, and call AGAIN the day before. And even then, there was one store that didn't have them...

[genevieve]

They don't get paid enough in Borders, is probably why. Not in my country anyhow.

[Guyot]

He listens to old Cure albums, back before they really made it, back when they were keeping it real, singing about Camus and shit.
That's hilarious.