Comments on: Well, This is Embarrassing

By: Slow Reader

Slow Reader — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:25:08 +0000

Brian -
I think you simply need to get over your hang-up about being an adult seen
with an armload of children’s or young adult books.
I also read lots of young adult books, for a writing program, and I happily
stand in line–at the library or used book store–with an armful of titles
such as What My Mother Doesn’t Know (a delightful book, by the way) and
Tricks and Bad Boy (a fine YA memoir), as well as scads of picture books,
though I am most obviously too old to have toddler children (and not yet
ready/willing to be a Grandma)
Give in to your desire for young adult books and be proud of
it!

By: Do You Buy Your Friends Books? « Sharleen Jonsson

Do You Buy Your Friends Books? « Sharleen Jonsson — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 22:44:59 +0000

[...] propensity toward cutesy titles but Amy
knows people want to know what the piece is about.) Read it here or read it
on STET, The Backspace Blog. Posted by sharleenjonsson Filed in
etiquette Tags: [...]

By: sharleenjonsson

sharleenjonsson — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:14:03 +0000

I’m not an expert in the business of
publishing, but you could always Google for more info on this — or ask
someone at your favourite bookstore.

What I do know is that publishing is changing at a breath-taking speed and
it may be that the days of remainders are numbered. My advice to you (or to
anyone working on a book) is to write the book and not even think about how
publishing works until then. No one knows how it will look a year or two
from now.

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 05:41:09 +0000

How does the remainder table work? Knowing
nothing about how the cash flows, I assume the bookstores pay a wholesale
price up front to buy several copies of a book and hope to sell them at a
retail price and then the publisher sends the author a royalty cheque for
some fraction of that wholesale revenue. But how is it that the author does
not get any money when the bookstore tries to move the book for $1.95?
Hasn’t the publisher already been paid by the retailer? Is there some step
I am missing? If a publisher drops a title do they have to send a refund to
the retailer for the unsold copies? If that’s the case, how does the
publisher know how many copies the retailer really failed to sell before the
title got dropped?

By: sharleenjonsson

sharleenjonsson — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:07:14 +0000

Hi, Brain.

Thanks for weighing in. I can’t afford to buy three books a week for any
course. (And if you are reading three novels a week — even YA novels which
are relatively short — I admire your work ethic!) In any case, most, or
perhaps even all, of the authors you’re reading do not live in the same city
as you do, so I say you should go ahead and borrow.

And I love your idea for a novel. Seriously. If you write it, I will BUY it.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:21:29 +0000

What exactly was your friend doing in the
library anyway? Was she just there to pick up a copy of Monday Magazine or
Focus? Could it be that she was there to borrow a book by some struggling
writer? Maybe you are not the only one who got caught but simply the one
whose guilt response got triggered first.

I have been taking an on-line writing course that requires reading three
young adult novels every week. To buy the books would end up costing more
than twice the cost of the course so I have been getting them all from the
library. Every time I go there I have been wondering what the etiquette is
for such things among writers. Should I wear a disguise? Should I hack
some little kid’s library card and use it instead of my own?

Here is a short story idea for you:
Someone in the Department of Homeland Security has access to all library
users’ records so he starts blackmailing the most highly acclaimed writers
he can find who do the most borrowing of books by emerging writers. What do
the victims do? Maybe they confess their dark secret to each other and
decide to collectively come out of the closet by branding themselves as
celebrity library supporters? Or maybe somebody’s agent makes that
suggestion when their publishers scramble for a way to do damage
control.

By: Marjorie

Marjorie — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:22:49 +0000

None of my friends, close or casual, has ever
written a book, but I expect that if they had, I’d be so excited I’d buy a
dozen copies just to give eleven away as gifts. (So I could say, “Oh, that
author is a friend of mine.”)

But I suppose I could keep up that sort of purchasing behavior only for so
long…