Author Events: Drawing in Readers, or Turning Them Away?

I enjoy reading, buying books and meeting authors. You would think these activities are compatible with the mission of bookstores. However, in recent times, I've found the act of buying a book has cost me author opportunities.

In January, Ransom Riggs released the second Miss Peregrine book, which I consumed promptly. The author was coming to a Barnes & Noble bookstore near me soon after the book was released, so I finished the book early (to avoid Spoilers some people just can't resist). I brought my stack of Riggs books with me in case he was signing.

When I arrived, a B&N employee informed me that only books purchased that day at B&N would be signed. No exceptions. He was  polite, but firm. After I finished listening to Riggs speak, I left the bookstore with a heavy heart. I didn't want to be duplicitous and buy a book I would later return (which someone suggested). I had read my copy, purchased from a different bookseller, and I was being punished.

Booksellers see customer activity differently than the customer does, and I understand the different perspective: why host (and possibly fund) an event when customers do not need to invest in their company to participate? 

Here is why: veni, vidi, emi. 

If I am in your store, I will buy from you, especially if you're supporting authors I read and enjoy. If I don't buy today, I will be back tomorrow, or the next day I am buying a book (which really is tomorrow, for me).

Yes, the siren song of cheap online books is tempting, and I have more than once dashed myself on those rocks. However, I value the services of bookstores and booksellers. If I support the stores that feature materials I like, they will continue to do so — as will I.

I invest in you, Bookseller, so you will do the same for me.

Only that no longer seems to be the case. The "Great Recession" has changed many merchant practices to stock very little and staff lightly. I have begun confirming stock and reserving books before I enter some bookstores. I mean, why bother putting on pants and leaving the house if I will leave a bookstore empty handed?

So, in a world where books aren't stocked unless there is a Good Reason (movie tie-in or author appearance, for example), readers are stuck between a book and a hard place: buy the book now and lose signing opportunities, or buy the book at an author appearance and lose the opportunity to discuss that book with that author.

I now read a store's fine print regarding author appearances. Where once there were no Rules, now there are many.

I will continue to buy my books when and how I please. I will continue to support local, independent and chain bookstores. I will continue to support authors. If, however, a bookstore looks to separate this reader from an author, this reader will reconsider her relationship with said bookstore.

Bookseller, relax: I will give you money. Just don't command me to do so. Trust my bookish wallet, as well as my bookish heart.

And I Feel a Little Dirty Afterward

So, I went to Barnes and Noble this week. Twice.

I was lonely.

A friend had given David a gift card. I kept getting their constant, invasive e-mails that told me nothing of interest: buy a Nook, buy a Nook, and get a coupon for your Nook. I don't own a Nook, so seldom were there useful coupons for me.

But I needed a bookstore, a bona fide bookstore. I had trolled the thrift stores, come home with piles of books (some I might even read). I was full — but not content.

I like seeing what's new, what is coming up. I like to touch hardbacks, flip through softcovers, peer at the cover, look at the typeface. I like to be surprised: I want to exclaim: a new Vincenzi already? So that's what Mark Haddon's cover really looks like! I want to find a deal, whip out my coupon for the one I want, buy an extra paperback to leave in the car.  I want to participate.

Amazon is cool: great service, fantastic selection, incredible prices. I have gotten rather spoiled by Amazon: no matter what I order, it shows up nearly instantly, exactly what I ordered, well-packaged and well-priced. I'm not adverse to paying good money for a book. I just don't want to get soaked every time I want to read.

I also don't want to be bombarded with what the bookstore values when it doesn't match my values. And I don't value the Nook.

I love my e-reader. My Kindle (another name for a group of kittens: squee!) gives me Internet service when I want it and a book in my pocket whenever I desperately need fiction. But I also have a library of nine floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, nearly full. I have autographed copies of Good Omens, The Eyre Affair and His Excellency, George Washington (to name a few).  And that's where B&N loses me.

I want my bookstore to show me books, not make the Nook the first, biggest thing I have to squeeze past to get to the books. (I do love the keyring hole in it, though — not that I'd use it, but it is a neat design element, for some reason.) I want the book to be celebrated, not the identity of the store. I don't care if it's called Ham Sandwich: if the store gives me what I want, I will remember what/where/who it is and recommend it at every turn. I am loyal. (Ask Borders.)

Then there's the coupon structure. So, I bought a book for "30 percent off (members get 40 percent off)." I had a coupon for an additional 20 percent off a single item. I bought two books. Here's how the coupon was applied: 30 percent off the original price of the sale book, an additional 10 percent off the now-discounted amount of the sale book, then another 20 percent off that discounted price — of the sale book. And here I thought I was buying one book at 40 percent off and the other at 20 percent off. It was a difference of only a couple of bucks, but I felt just a little cheated.

David is a media guy who shops for music and movies. When he saw a Blu-Ray movie for $40, just a single Blu-Ray disc, his head nearly exploded and he refused to purchase it unless I insisted. (I didn't insist.)

I am all for supporting the merchant who brings you what you want. I have purchased books at absurd (to me) prices because it's what I wanted, the store had it and I wanted to keep them in business. Support the source, right?

And yet...

I just don't like the cluttered store with the e-book counter front and center, a collection of "classics" everyone will buy because they think they should read them, a selection of newly released and pop books people will buy, and overpriced movies. I always walk out of there feeling like B&N has taken advantage of me — and worse, with my permission.

Still, I am hungry for books. There are at least three titles I want right now (but must wait until one is actually published). I want to have a bookstore in town on which I can rely. Do I just "let it go" and try to not feel cheated when squeezing past the Nook counter at B&N (where there is no Marge Piercy, ever)? Do I travel 45 minutes into another state to an independent bookstore and pay full price, plus my time? I don't know. But for now, I will try to just relax, enjoy my new books and decide next week when I "simply must get that book." It's not a perfect world, but it's the best we can do.

Looking for Books in a Border-Less World

I miss My Borders.

The cultural blog/aggregator Flavorwire was kind enough recently to tell me about "10 of the Most Hilarious Memoirs You’ll Ever Read." Intrigued, I checked it out — and found a memoir that sounded really, really good:  Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by The Bloggess Jenny Lawson.


Two words: must have.


In the olden days, I'd have stopped by My Borders on the way home from the gym that night and picked up my copy, maybe even started reading it in the store (with a cookie and a latte from the café).  Alas, that is no longer my life.  Instead, I checked a couple of resources to see what this book would set me back. (For those of you keeping score at home, the publisher has set the manufacturer's suggested retail price, or MSRP, at $27.99.)  

Amazon featured it for $12.99, which was a fine price, but add in shipping and the fact I'd have to wait, and the price became less attractive. Plus, after seeing the cold, heartless inside of an Amazon warehouse, I do not find Amazon the panacea it once was.


So on to Barnes & Noble, my nemesis.

First, let me explain: I do not find the local Barnes & Noble as inviting as My Borders was. I hate encountering a Nook-shiller during my first breath in a bookstore. (Yes, I know e-books are as much "book" as "e," but that's not what B&N makes me think it thinks.)

Second, I feel as though the books are shoved into shelves which are scattered about the store without rhyme or reason in a vain attempt to make us wander past every shelf so we encounter more books we want to buy. 

Third, they have no Marge Percy in the poetry section any time I visit.

Fourth, I was offered only a few months' free membership in the B&N membership club when they took over Borders Rewards. My Borders membership information, had they bothered to review it, should have earned me a free one-year membership. B&N didn't care about me as a customer, so I don't care about B&N as a consumer.


Okay, back to the matter at hand. 

So, I check B&N's website to see how the price compares. 

B&N charged a dollar more than Amazon, but my husband David's membership would provide free shipping to my location of choice. Plus, I could see if B&N had the book in stock at the local brick and mortar store. Which it did — but, wait! The cost was listed as the MSRP. Didn't the website list it for half that? Thinking the website didn't reflect the in-store sale price, I called the store to confirm the cost.

The bookseller who answered the phone was very enthusiastic about the book, and confirmed the store price: full MSRP.

Stores with both Internet and street presence need to clearly, boldly list the price differentiation. Sure, that's counter-intuitive to your "suck me in and make me enter your store so I'll buy it anyway because I drove all the way out there" approach. However, you have only once shot at that before I get to decide: be sucker-punched whenever I walk in the door or accept that I have no idea what an item costs in your store until I walk in and see the tag. 

Let me warn you, I don't forget easily. I still hold a grudge against Mattress Discounters for charging me extra for delivery of a bedframe because the salesperson didn't reserve it in time at the warehouse and I had to choose whether to accept the floor sample with an insignificant discount or decide I lost half a day's wages waiting for the store salesclerk to hose me. That was in 1996, people, and not only did I choose another store for my latest new mattress, but I share that story with everyone who speaks the phrase "Mattress Discounters."


Okay, back to the matter at hand.


I wanted the book — but would I buy it?

I didn't want to travel across town to a bookstore I didn't like for a book at full MSRP (minus David's discount, because I don't buy books from B&N). I didn't want to wait a week for a mail-order. I didn't want to pay Amazon shipping and I didn't want to buy it from a store that didn't differentiate between online price and in-store price.


I was still mulling it over when I saw it on the shelves during an "unexpected" trip to Target. (Are any trips to Target really unexpected?) In-store was a 30 percent discount. It was there, I was there, I already had coffee, a To Kill a Mockingbird Blu-Ray, an Avengers t-shirt and cat treats in the basket. David was perusing the magazines, looking longingly at the summer movie issue of Entertainment Weekly. Target lists their prices online as "online."


"I miss My Borders," I said.

"I know," David said.

I put the book in the basket.


So far, I have thoroughly enjoyed the book. David has devoured his magazine. We drank the coffee this morning. 

Target: 1. 
B&N: 0. 
Borders: still breaking my heart.

Books Without Borders

I have seen the future without Borders, and it is Target.

And it makes me wish to weep.

David and I stopped by Borders the other day to indulge yet again (and to say "hello" to our future shelves).  We had a stack of goods we literally could not carry without each others' help.  Between coffee table books on music and guitars, a Jackie Chan video, Game of Thrones, The Anubis Gates, another Flavia mystery novel and a few novels and DVDs that will be gifts, our arms were full.

While we were there, I could not find some of the more recently published books, but I suspect most of the newer items had been snatched up quickly.  There was a biography I had tried for the better part of a year to pick up at the bookstore, but was again unsuccessful.

Today I encountered a book trailer that made me want to race out and purchase said book (thanks to Harper Collins Canada).  I knew I wasn't going to risk another encounter at Borders so soon — it's too exhausting to see such a loved bookstore in such disarray and disrepair.  I was going to Target, anyway, so figured I'd try my luck there.

"No luck" doesn't quite describe it.

There was room for for 12 books in the young adult "section."  Three slots were taken up by the first Harry Potter novel.  The top row was all Rick Riordian novels.  The rest of the collection was composed of whatever teen vampire romances are hot to teens.

I wanted to cry.

I knew I'd miss Borders, but I didn't realize the vast wasteland that awaited me.

It is in part my own fault.  I have a thing about Barnes & Noble: I don't like paying for a "club" discount.  I'm not a member of those big box warehouse stores for that very reason (well, that, and  refusing to buy a vat of mayonnaise I'l never finish, if only because I can't reach the bottom of the 10-gallon barrel to finish it off).  Paying what is a comparatively paltry sum to receive reasonable discounts shouldn't rub me the wrong way, but it does.

I'll be a member of a free discount club to the end of time, and they are free to mine my purchasing history for their marketing programs; it's only fair to help them sell me what I may (or may not) need.  For that information alone I deserve a discount, and I'm glad to take it at what seems like no additional cost to me.  (I am not foolish enough to think anything is truly free.)  However, to pay for that same "privilege" offends me.  Both I and the company in question will benefit, them more so because they can use my data to further their sales, market to their customers and determine their inventory.  I just want to buy at the "member" discount without having to pay for it up front.

However, if Target makes me weep over books again, I might give up bookstores altogether.  Amazon serves me well, gives me recommendations, sells to me at a reasonable price and delivers it at lightning-quick speed — and I can shop in my underpants.  (Sorry for the visual — and no, pouring bleach in your eyes will not help.)  I love my library and have been voraciously consuming those books at an alarming rate.  I just want to hand a book I love to a friend, who then can love it, too — and the library frowns on that.

I cannot go cold turkey, so I'll still hit up my thrift stores and used bookstores, which are my true passion.  However, as it stands, sparkling new bookstores may be a thing of the past.

Hopefully Barnes & Noble will come around to my way of thinking, especially since the competition is shrinking (for the time being).  If not, I'll have to totally change my book buying habits which, while a benefit to my wallet, will take its toll on my bookish soul. 

Tell me: what are you doing for your books these days, now that the Age of Borders is waning?