a moment of silence
My favorite local bookstore has gone under. It was a Barnes and Noble, but it felt like an indy because of the enthusiastic staff. They'd all been there for years. Now where will they go?
Where will I go?
more fun and hi-jinks at RWA.
To the Board of Directors of the Romance Writers of America: It has been brought to our attention, by several of our romance authors, that your organization no longer considers Medallion Press, Inc. a legitimate publisher according to your guidelines. We were surprised we did not receive official notification directly, but instead discovered it was posted on several RWA internet loops. Accordingly, we request this letter be published in its entirety in the RWR Report so all members may understand the nature of the process that eliminated Medallion as an RWA approved publisher. We will also send copies of this letter to all our own RWA member authors. We are dismayed you declared Medallion Press no longer a legitimate publisher. In July of 2004 we met all of your qualifications without incident by showing sales of 5000+ copies of USA Today Bestselling author Nan Ryan's The Last Dance. Several months prior to Book Expo America 2005, we received a call from your office alerting us to
Oh Noooo!
ReplyDeleteI wrote a while ago about how much I like my bookstore. I love the staff in mine more than anything.
(But will they discount the stock as they prepare to ship out? Is that some sort of grave robbing?)
Poor Kate. I feel the pain.
Weird Kate, because the same thing just happened where I live. There's still a big Barnes and Noble, but I loved the smaller one because the employees where so excited about discussing books of any kind. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain Kate, over here, we don't generally have romance sections in bookstores, but there is one particular shop that I love just cuz the shop assistants are fab!
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you one place I WON'T go: the actual indy bookstore in town. I used to spend hours and mucho dollars there but stopped when they told me they won't sell my books because I write romance and they don't carry that tripe. Bunch o' snobs.
ReplyDeleteThe people who work in the so-called "indy bookstores" are often extremely closed-minded. They despise genre fiction, unless they're feeling "quirky" and they want to slum for a while.
ReplyDeleteI don't heart them very much at all.
OH NO! How the hell does a B&N get shut down, anyway?
ReplyDeleteI'm appalled that your indy bookstore wouldn't support a local author, despite their poor judgment not to carry romances. :(
Ridiculous that the indy bookstore won't support you -- if they were specifically a metaphysical bookstore or something like that, I'd understand, but if they're carrying most everything else, you'd think they'd want to support local authors. I know a bookstore who doesn't have a large romance section but who does autographings for authors who live in the local area because they have a program of supporting local authors. It's not as big of a splash as when they had, say, John Glenn in to autograph, but it's always nice.
ReplyDeleteI know a bunch of B. Dalton's have shut down recently, but it's strange to hear of a B&N shutting down and I feel your pain. I'd be lost without my local Borders, though more for the cafe rather than the books; it's one of my regular writing haunts and the staff is very supportive of the fact that I'm writing.
yeah, actually it's sad because they KNOW me. I used to go in there all the time. keywords "used to."
ReplyDeleteIt was the owner's call and actually one of the employees there was even more outraged than I was -- and said she liked my book.
I find it incredible that your indy does not support a local author. I used to work at a public library and we ALWAYS made it a point to purchase every book authored by a local author and even authors throughout the state. Granted, our purpose wasn't to make a profit but there could have been a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship between the two of you! First time here by the way, found you at Paula Reed's blog.
ReplyDelete