Ever wonder what's going through the mind of your local bookseller when customers present nearly impossible riddles to find a random book with a red cover by an unknown title and author, but it was mentioned briefly in an obscure magazine two months previously? And yet, booksellers come back to work every day to stock the shelves with our prized possessions and make those front of store tables beautiful. Check out Bookseller Chick's blog.
As a former bookseller, I can sympathize with some of Bookseller Chick's daily battles and tiny triumphs. I remember Christmas seasons filled with last-minute shoppers who were angry that a bestseller was sold out on Christmas Eve and others who came in with nothing more than the knowledge that their neices liked to read and who left happily with a copy of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
On the publishing end of the spectrum, we love booksellers because they get our product out there. But they give us grief when they return books that didn't sell as well as hoped in the first 90 days. They are simultaneously publishers' and authors' best friends and worst enemies.
But it's all part of the wonderful world we call the Book Biz.
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