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?
No snark. Bad puppy. No. (Review stuff.)
A two star Amazon review on His American Detective: "Bodice ripper about gay men by a woman." and I'm longing to comment "don't you mean a waistcoat ripper?" God, no. Stop me. The reviews rarely rattle me any longer -- except when I spot a truth in a bad one. When that happens, I actually lose sleep. This means I still care about writing. Speaking of reviewers and writers: A couple of days ago, a writer said she was tired of getting white ladies writing reviews of her books. She had an excellent point in the long run: her stories are meant for a particular audience and she wants them to resonate with those people and get more reviews from them. But that first line was just....horribly obnoxious. I say this from my POV of course. Not a white lady who writes reviews -- but as a review grubber. Anyone who disses any reader (especially ones that give honest reviews) deserves to be cast into the pit of being ignored.
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