I find the best websites when I’m procrastinating working productively. Usually they come courtesy of another writer friend, via email or Facebook links — seductive little snippets with irresistible headlines. So when Lisa Yee (Absolutely Maybe) pointed some fellow writers to a cathartic website aimed at easing the pain of bad reviews, I had to check it out.

The Worst Review Ever blog was established by YA author Alexa Young (Faketastic) in a spirit of self-preservation and camaraderie with her fellow writers. It provides hilarity and healing for beleaguered authors licking their wounds from scathing reviews — reviews found on Amazon, Goodreads, blogs, and even (occasionally) from professional review publications. Any negative statement in a review is felt with outsized sensitivity by writers (whose job, after all, requires a degree of sensitivity); it is like someone pointing out that one’s baby has a smashed nose or mutant feet.

Where else can you find horrifying (and horribly funny) wholesale pans like this one-liner, which calls a book by a well-respected YA writer "[a] candy-coated turd." Or provides another author with his nightmare of a reader response: "The plot sees [sic] to drag on and on with only one every [sic] slightly exciting section in the middle that also fizzles out." What makes it feel perfectly okay to laugh at these is that the authors themselves have sent in the reviews. There’s a kind of power in taking the bad reviews and using them for one’s own purposes.

Young goes one further in the empowerment train: she follows each "worst review" with quickie author interviews, asking where, when, and how they encountered the review and what they did about it. Then, to keep it all in perspective, she jauntily invites readers to rate how bad it really is: "And now let’s rate [sad author]’s pain:

1 star = That wasn’t so bad
2 stars = Yeah, that would hurt
3 stars = Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
4 stars = Beyond harsh, cruel, and unusual punishment
5 stars = Definitely the WORST. REVIEW. EVER."

It’s a fisherman’s pub, an adventurer’s lounge where the participants can brag about their narrow escapes, compare scars, laugh in the face of tragedy, and be bought beers by their compatriots. And the one who gets the very worst review ever, each season, wins a prize—which I think should also include a gift certificate to an independent bookstore. Ahem. These are authors, after all, and they need books. *cough*indiebound.org*cough* Just sayin’.

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A while ago, I linked in ShelfTalker to Twilight the Musical, an amateur film. So how could I resist when a recent friend, Misrule‘s Australian blogmaster, Judith Ridge, alerted me to this enticing entry: Buffy vs. Edward (Twilight Remix). See? You know you want to watch it. Very funny, and a justifiable time-suck, given your profession as a bookseller/author/children’s lit fan/publishing house person/etc.

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Finally, there’s Cakewrecks, one of my all-time favorite places to go for some actual, take-you-by-surprise belly laughs. The main part of the website is devoted to egregious errors in professional cake decorating, photograph after photograph of hideous frosting foul-ups, lettering gaffes, and strange concoctions that reduce an innocent viewer to incoherent babbling: "My eyes! My eyes!"

You will not believe some of the atrocities therein. Here’s just one, and it’s not even that bad by Cakewrecks standards:

Blogger Jen Yates, writes: Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns. Plenty of adults have it these days, and this vintage photo from Jessica E. may explain why:

Ah, yes: the great clown massacre of ’77.

Can you handle more creepy clown cakes? Go here.

But the site also celebrate fabulous cakes, too, in entries called Sweet Sundays. A recent entry showcased confectionary paeans to children’s literature, including these familiar figures:

The best part of Cakewrecks is Yates’s hilarious commentary, tucked modestly in between the photos. She’s a sharp, concise, playful, terrific writer whose site has won numerous awards: 2008 Bloggies: Best Writing of a Weblog, Best New Weblog, Best Food Blog; 2008 Weblog Awards: Best Food Blog; and 2008 Blogger’s Choice Awards: Best Humor Blog. Andrews McMeel is publishing a book in September born from the site: Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong. I already know I’m going to love it and leaf through it as often as I do James Lilek’s Gallery of Regrettable Food (please don’t let this book go OP, Crown! I’ll order more right away), or Wendy McClure’s Candyboots.com collection of Weight Watchers recipe cards from the 1970’s (the pictures are grotesquely riotous, but as with Cakewrecks.com and Regrettable Food, the best laughs come from the accompanying commentary. Think David Sedaris eviscerating — and celebrating — poor taste and misguided good intentions, and you’ll have a sense of how funny these writers are. All three have made me cry from laughing at one time or another. All in all, not bad payback for an afternoon’s procrastination.

Let’s face it, bookselling is fairly routine. We restock books, we order books, we take special orders, we have story hour and sometimes we staunch the flow of blood on a customer’s head. Admittedly, the staunching happens only very rarely, but when it does, it reminds you that our customers can get injured at the store.

I feel I need to explain about the blood. A very fit woman in her early thirties tried to leap over the flower bed onto our deck rather than walk around to the stairs. Well, she didn’t quite make it and wound up clipping her head on the toy store’s metal sign.  She came into our store with blood flowing down her face from a gash in her head that was apparently spurting blood. (Why she didn’t go the toy store is beyond me — they were two feet away.) Ironically, I was not at work yet; as a former EMT who ran the local rescue squad for five years, I could have helped her out. As it was one of our staffers has been a doctor’s wife for over thirty years, and she leapt in to help the ultimately fine, but very shaken woman. Our other staffer, a truly wonderful bookseller, was outside getting air, as the sight and smell of blood make her sick. All the right things were done. The bleeding slowed with the help of Darrilyn applying pressure to the wound. The woman’s husband came to take her the to doctor for the stitches I’m certain she needed. Darrilyn cleaned up and went about her day.

Now, it’s not every day that people gush blood in the store. Usually the injuries revolve around a small child who gets an eentsy paper cut (you know, the ones we all pretend we can see) that feels instantly better with a Snoopy Band-Aid.  We’ve had some other injuries: once a toddler gashed his eyebrow after falling on the corner of a very sharp wooden spinner. This winter we had a thirteen-year-old girl faint dead away from a stomach bug. Her mother was with her and took her home. The girl was fine and literally bounded into the store every day for a week to let us know she was doing all right.

Sometimes other things happen that are gross, but must be dealt with. A potty-training accident in picture books. Not the worst thing, but it’s got to get cleaned up. Oftentimes the parents are embarrassed and just flee the area, leaving me running for paper towels and cleanser. Once we had a little boy who was mad at his mother’s (a really good customer) leaving to go to the car for her wallet, decide right now, on the floor, would be a great time to move his bowels. She was mortified, but she cleaned it up and sadly we never saw her again. Little kids spit up, have whoopsies, amazingly smelly diapers and go boom practically once a week. These things happen and our ease as booksellers at their occurrence makes everything go smoothly and helps to put the customers at ease.

These few more serious injuries make me realize that not everyone on staff is comfortable, or willing, to really help in an emergency. This got me pondering: what should I, as the owner, do about this? Well, I’ve decided to work with our local rescue squad on offering a free CPR/First Aid training for all the local merchants. (The businesses would pay for their staffers to go.) I mentioned this to two staffers and one said she wasn’t really interested and the other asked if it was mandatory. I was stunned.

But the more I think about it, the more it seems that this training needs to be mandatory. I don’t want a customer to have a heart attack, or for a baby to choke and have the staff just stand there after calling 911.  Basic first aid and CPR seem like smart things for every frontlne bookseller to know.

There are liability issues to consider. They are covered under the Good Samaritan Doctrine, which according to Black’s Law 7th edition is: "A statute that exempts from liability a person (such as an off-duty physician) who voluntairly renders aid to another in imminent danger but negligently causes injury while rendering the aid. Some form of good-samaritan legislation has been enacted in all 50 states and the District of Columbia." Every state has a different view of this, so please know the law before you rush out to help the car accident victim in front of your store. Because if you pull someone from a car who is not in imminent danger and you paralyze them, you can be sued. Be careful, be smart and talk to the folks who trained you on CPR and First Aid.

I’m very curious what other folks do in their stores. Please let me know what your policy is about First Aid/CPR training for your staff.

Here’s a random fact I stumbled upon recently: Recycle Bookstore West in Campbell, Calif., has a store cat named Isbn. Yes, Isbn, as in ISBN. How clever is that?? Without a doubt, this is the best name for a bookstore cat that I’ve come across as yet in my many years of bookstore travels.

The photo of Isbn below is one that appears (along with some very favorable reviews!) on Yelp, but others can also be found in the Flickr accounts of Klara Kim and meowhous.

A year ago I blogged about Veruca, the tortoise that makes his home at Rivendell Books in Montpelier, Vt., and who also happens to sport a great book-related name. Have you had or known a pet with a great bookish name? If so please immortalize them here and (in so doing) offer inspiration to other book-loving would-be pet owners.

Training staffers to read customers’ signals can lead to much better, more successful experiences for both customer and bookseller.

In Robert Altman’s delicious film, Gosford Park, Helen Mirren plays Mrs. Wilson, the impeccable head housekeeper of an English country manor. Toward the end of the film, Mrs. Wilson reveals the secret of her efficacy to a young lady’s maid: "What gift do you think a good servant has that separates them from the others? It’s the gift of anticipation…. I know when they’ll be hungry and the food is ready. I know when they’ll be tired and the bed is turned down. I know it before they know it themselves."

While retail is certainly not servitude—though it can feel that way sometimes, har har—it is a form of hospitality. Tto be a good retailer means to be a good host, sensitive to the needs and anticipating the whims of the customer.

After nearly thirteen years of bookselling, we’ve gotten a pretty good handle on what customers, wittingly or not, are trying to say to us—not only with their words and tone of voice, but with their body language. This kind of "reading" comes more naturally to some folks than others, and certainly is refined through experience. So it occurred to us that bookseller colleagues might welcome a little tip sheet for staffers who might be newer to retail or just not as attuned to the signals customers telegraph. The examples below aren’t comprehensive, but should serve as a basic guide to the kinds of things we encounter on the floor, at the register, and after the sale.

On the Floor
A customer’s approach into the store is immediately telling. If someone walks in the door and strides toward you or the checkout counter, she’s obviously on a mission and knows what she wants—and a bookseller had better be ready to ring up that gift card or find that special order, pronto. If someone comes in and goes immediately to a particular section, he knows where he’s headed and probably wants to browse there without help or interruption, at least for a while. A quick hello suffices there. If customers come in hesitantly, looking around, this is likely a first visit and needs to be handled with just the right balance of welcome and space: you want to establish contact so they know whom to ask for help, but not smother them with the kind of boutique-y attention that sends many customers (myself included) running for the door.

As a general rule, we like to greet customers with a quick, friendly hello when they walk in, then let them settle into the store before offering help. Your hello tells them you’re there, paying attention, available if needed. (That initial contact from a salesperson has also been shown to reduce shoplifting.) A customer’s hello tells you even more: a brusque or hesitant reply generally means, "Please leave me alone to browse. I’m not ready for / interested in personal interaction right now." It’s really important to let these customers be. Like many of us, they prefer to browse on their own and feel hovered over if salespeople are overly solicitous. Body language signal: a turned-away of the body or head indicates a desire for distance and independence. Crossed arms are a definite "leave me alone" sign. Most of these customers, once they’re comfortable in the store and secure in the knowledge that you are not going to stand over them, will relax and let you help them if they need it. (One caveat: customers who avoid eye contact and won’t engage even to say hello might merely be socially awkward, but an avoidance of sales clerks is also a hallmark of many shoplifters, so just be alert.) We try to make sure we connect with every customer two or three times: once when they come in, usually once during the browsing process, and a sincere "thank you" when they head out, whether or not they’ve made a purchase.

Though we generally leave customers alone to browse, our job is to notice when customers need help, and respond quickly to that need. Even the most independent shopper might want help finding a title; in fact, these shoppers are the most likely to leave a store if they don’t find what they’re looking for quickly. They’re not thinking, "I wonder if they have my book in overstock, or in another section, or can order it for me?" They’re thinking, "Not here. Go elsewhere." So how do you know when or if you should check in again with someone? Their behavior gives you a clue: someone scanning the shelves up and down quickly is not finding what he or she wants. The same is true of someone who goes back and forth between two or three sections; something is missing, and our job is to help them figure out what it is.

We train our staffers to offer help after a few minutes, but from a distance. "Let me know if you’d like help finding anything," we might say from behind the counter or as we pass by, arms full of books to shelve. Call it customer psychology, but if you really want to be asked for help, get busy doing something else, and the people will flock to you with questions. (It’s some form of Murphy’s Retail Law: the customer will want the most help when you are least able to provide it, and vice versa.)

Body language is huge when you’re recommending books to customers. They will literally lean toward you and a book when they’re interested, and lean away or step back when they’re not. Kids are particularly funny about this: kids (especially ages 6-10) who don’t know you, and who are not yet as schooled in politeness as most adults, may actually silently refuse to take hold of a book you’re showing them if they aren’t intrigued. When this happens, I either move on to the next recommendation or, if it’s a great book I’m pretty sure the child will love, I reassure them that they don’t have to commit to any book they take a look at, and that they might find it worthwhile to read a page or two of the proffered title. I also let them know that these are just suggestions, and that they certainly won’t hurt my feelings if they decide not to get a book I’ve recommended. "You want the right book at the right time, a book you’re in the mood for," I tell them, and—the pressure lifted—they usually are willing to take a look at whatever book with an iffy cover but terrific insides I’m trying to hand them.

Some people only want one or two choices to choose from; others want personal shopping assistance for as long as you can give it. When customers have reached their fill of recommendations, you’ll see their gaze start to wander and they will seem distracted. They’ll start nodding and saying "uh-huh" to your every sentence; they’re being polite, but really, their minds have gone elsewhere. They cannot absorb another book. This is your cue: find them a place to sit with the little stack of books, suggest they make their yes-no-maybe piles, and let them be.

Noticing customers’ body language will help you gauge their interest and comfort level and adjust your own sales behavior accordingly, backing off or stepping up when appropriate.

Handy tip—if a customer, child or adult, is vacillating between two books, try this: take the books, shuffle them behind your back, and then say, "Pick a hand." (Sometimes, a child might resist, thinking they’ll be stuck with the one they pick; if this happens, reassure them that they don’t HAVE to take the one they choose.) When the book they’ve chosen is revealed, watch their expression and ask, "Did your heart sink or leap when you saw this one? Did you kind of want the other one, or is this the one?" Usually the answer is suddenly clear. This little game works 99% of the time to help make the choice. The other 1%, a child will say, "I don’t know. They’re both the same." And that’s when you help
fu
lly say, with a mischievous smile at the parent, "Then I guess you should get both!" Or offer to put one on a wish list for their next visit.

At the Register
Nothing drives me crazier as a customer than being ignored while waiting to be rung up. Once people are in line, they’re generally done browsing and ready to get going. Employees should be aware of this; it’s so easy to make quick eye contact with people in line, smile, and say, "We’ll be with you shortly." That simple act does more to stop the sighing, fidgeting, and tapping of impatient people than just about anything else you can do short of shoving the people ahead of them out of line.

If you notice a really impatient person (again, the heavy sighing and tapping of a foot or fingers will be your obvious clues), you might check in with them quietly while you’re helping someone else, asking "Are you in a hurry?" When they inevitably say yes, offer a solution: "Would you like me to ring this up and wrap it while you’re doing some other errands nearby?" or, "We’re open until six if you’d like to come back." Often, kind-hearted customers ahead of the rushed customer will hear this exchange and offer to let that person ahead in line. When that happens, I often joke, "Flying Pig triage," which usually gets a tension-relieving chuckle, and I make sure to thank the person who’s generously let the other customer cut in. That’s a win-win situation; everyone feels good, acknowledged, helped or helpful.

After the Transaction
While no one likes waiting in line, and most people telegraph at least a little impatience while waiting their turn, once they get up to the counter, they often become expansive, even chatty. This is when your inner retail host has to be most graceful—you want this time with your customer, because the relationship is real, because you’ve seen their kids grow up, because you know their dogs’ names, because you are a community member with ties to many of your customers and an interest in all of them. (Well, all but that one imperious, entitled customer you wish would find another bookstore to terrorize.) You need this time, but you also must be aware of those waiting for your attention, too. Again, being aware of the bodies around you and what they’re communicating is the key to keeping a balance between enjoying catching up with a customer and risking alienating the goodwill of the next person. If someone is chatting with you for too long, oblivious to the people behind her, your own signals can help: make eye contact and nod to the next person in line, reaching out a hand for their book to ring up, while saying something like, "It’s always so great to see you!" to the person you need to nudge along. Whatever you say and do, of course it must be genuine; fakeyness, even for a good cause, is always a huge turn-off and easily scented.

On the other hand, sometimes it’s the staffer who lingers too long, chatting with a customer who is actually trying to get out of the store. Feet give away a person’s intentions; if a customer’s feet are pointing toward the door, then even if their body is turned toward you, they’re on their way out. They’re chatting but secretly want or need to to get on with their day. If you can help your staff read the feet, you can avoid the pitfall of being friendly past the natural expiration date of the interaction.

Addendum: Kelly, one of our very well-read staffers (and I mean that in both senses of the term ‘well-read’), just mentioned another body-language signal savvy booksellers should note: the lingering goodbye. This is related to the ‘tricky follow-up question.’ Let’s say a customer has come in seeking a particular book that you happen to be out of. You place it on order for the customer, and let them know when it is likely to arrive. Some booksellers stop there. But unless that customer immediately heads right back out the door, he or she wants something else. A lingering customer is hoping to find something to take home. That’s your opportunity to ask, "Are you in the middle of a book right now, or would you like a recommendation?" This is the tricky follow-up question; you don’t want to be sales-y, but you are sensing a need, you are in fact a bookseller, you are surrounded by great books, and your customers love to read. There’s nothing to lose by trying to meet that need. It may turn out that your follow-up conversation leads to the customer remembering an unread book on her stack at home. That’s fine, too. She will leave feeling like she’s had a terrific customer service experience when there is no expectation hidden in the invitation for her to buy another book. And she’ll be back.

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Booksellers and customers out there, what signals do you wish the person on the other side of the counter would pick up on?

I’ve noticed a strange trend among grandparents these days, and sometimes among parents: the tendency to reject a book for not being specifically, literally representative of their child’s world. "Oh, he won’t read that," they might say. "It’s a city book, and they live in the country." Or, "Oh, no, she’s got a little SISTER, not a little brother. Do you have something with a little sister?" (Yes, we do, but maybe that book is a little less wonderful than the one with the little brother.) Or, most disheartening of all, a whispered, "I don’t think he’ll really be interested in that," when the child’s skin color on the cover does not match the child’s skin color in real life. (I’ll add here that only white customers make this kind of comment; customers of color — even if they were so narrow-minded — wouldn’t have the luxury of limiting their children only to books about kids like themselves; there just aren’t enough. But that’s a separate post.)

Do these adults think children won’t make the leap? Whatever happened to imagination, metaphor, curiosity? To encountering the unexpected, or trying on new lives through the windows of a book? In my experience, that’s in large part what books are for. As a child growing up in the sand-colored deserts of Arizona, I loved reading about kids in New York City, or the swamps of the south. I did enjoy the odd book about my own landscape, in part because there were so few of them, but if I’d limited myself to books about kids like me in a setting like mine, I’d have likely been bored, for one thing, and grown up with a very narrow world view, for another. In fact, thinking about it, the only Southwest stories I really loved were Native American stories, which fascinated and enchanted me. I was living my life; the magic of books lay in getting to live someone else’s.

As we all know from reading to children, and having been children ourselves, something inside us needs stories that expand us. Children are already open to so much more than most adults; they don’t even notice characters’ skin color—they’re in it for the story. And they’re always, always hungry for something new and fun and interesting and meaningful.

Most days, I have the energy to gently encourage these literal-minded customers to give farther-afield books a chance (and to give their grandchildren a little more imaginative credit). Once in a while, though, I cave, and hand Grandma the book she really wants, with a character that has her grandson’s name and lives her grandson’s life. That happens when I can tell a customer is so set in her way of thinking that whatever I say will fall on (metaphorically) deaf ears.

The increasing literal-mindedness is showing up here and there in children, too, and it disturbs me. It used to be that naming your new stuffed animal was practically a sacred rite of passage in plush parenting; now, if the tag on the creature doesn’t provide a pre-fab name, we’re seeing kids at a loss, calling their new dog "Puppy" and their new cat "Kitty." What happened to Alexander Sassafrass and Robbily Susan? I find myself getting this mischievous, mad gleam in my eye and finding a way to steer that family toward Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

We have many missions as booksellers, but it’s a strange world when one of them is the need to defend children’s curiosity and imagination against the instincts of some of their most loving and well-intentioned guardians. On those days, I just want to see kids playing outside somewhere, absorbed in the microscopic world of bugs and fairies or forts and treehouses, tattered book lying open on the grass, icy glass of lemonade sweating in the sun. Or, if they’re city kids, playing in the stream of a hydrant, giggling and squealing with their friends, and sharing stories.

I’d love to hear some of your most effective tactics for getting adults to trust children’s open-mindedness and willingness to visit lands and lives beyond their own.

I am impressed. Last week when I asked for summer reading suggestions, 31 people offered some truly wonderful suggestions. Click here and you’ll be able to see the whole list.

It would seem that just about everyone suggested The Hunger Games — clearly this was the most popular book on the list. This book is a smart choice to have a reading list because the kids will be excited to see it on the list and even happier to read it, especially with the sequel coming out in September. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was equally popular. There were 87 books on the list, and 57% of the authors were women. This is the striking difference with the school lists I’ve gotten this year. I’m not sure what this means other than it makes me happy. So often these lists are the "classics" and that usually means male authors aside from Austen and the Brontes.

This list is exciting. It’s full of great modern characters that kids can relate to, and isn’t this what a reading list is supposed to do? Laurie Halse Anderson’s Chains was another book populating many lists.  Every book by John Green was on the list more than once. Finally, someone is paying attention to young adult males who actually like realistic fistion. Historical fiction was nicely represented as well. Sometimes what’s lacking in school lists is balance. It’s either too skewed to to classics, with nothing published after 1970, or it’s a land of science fiction and fantasy.

Our small sampling made me wish I was a student at this school of reading. I would have been overwhelmed by great choices and read far more than the required number. Please feel free to comment on the list, if there’s something fabulous that you feel is missing. We can continue to grow the best summer reading list, ever.

Now that schools in Vermont are officially on summer break, I’ve noticed something I’m not sure how to handle.

School let out on Friday and since then I’ve had four nine-year-old girls ask for one or more books in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think Twilight is a fine series. I enjoyed it immensely when I read it. I am forty-four, not nine. I’m not sure what to do with this current phenomenon. I don’t like to judge purchases by anyone in my store, but this troubles me.

These bouncy, pigtailed nine-year-olds seem to have no reason to read these books other than "my friends are reading it." They don’t even like boys. I find asking them "Do you like boys?" is a great weeding-out question for some of the younger set. A giggle, and a sheepish "no" can usually sway them away from any book, except Twilight.

Well, this is the first time in 13 years of bookselling that I’ve had a real problem with a trend. I just think it’s wrong for innocent nine-year-olds to read a book about a vampire love story centered on a 17-year-old girl who loves a vampire. Yes, the first book is fairly innocent, but as the books progress so does the mature behavior, marriage, sex and a fairly intense birth scene. And I wonder how many parents would let their nine-year-old daughters, or sons for that matter, read any other book that dealt with such mature themes.

My fear is twofold — the first is they are coming to a good book too early and they won’t get out of the book what they would if they read it at the right age. The second issue is now that these girls are reading about characters so much older, they won’t have patience or the desire to read about children their own age. It saddens me that for three years parents who have put their foot down to their daughters who wanted to read Twilight before they were 12, have lost the will to make their kids wait. I worry that girls will think Harriet the Spy is too young for them, that The Great Gilly Hopkins has nothing to do with their lives, Walk Two Moons isn’t relevant. It pains me when nine-year-olds head right back to the young adult section and bypass the riches that make up the middle-grade section.

There are reasons books are written for the middle-grade set — they are appropriate for that age child, with maturity level they can handle and a complexity of the story with characters who speak to a child who is eight to twelve. As I explained to a befuddled Dad, kids who are nine and ten and go straight to young adult sometimes don’t come back to the books that were written for them. And that to me is the real tragedy in all of this.

So, how do I, as a bookseller, gently sway parents from buying a book their child is so obviously happy to read, but I feel is far too old? It’s a question I’ve been grappling with, unsuccessfully, for weeks. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

As the owner of an independent bookstore, I get approached at least twice a week by self-published authors asking me to sell their books. The world of self-published books has changed a great deal since we’ve been open. The quality is vastly improved — even Kinko’s can produce a handsome book. The challenge becomes how to distinguish your book from the multitude we see a year.

I’ve amassed a list of what I’d like to see happen to make this growing area of bookselling as beneficial as possible for both parties. I’ve had some great success with self-published books. So if you’re an author, don’t despair, you can almost always get your book on the shelf. One thing I’ve changed is that now I’ll take one copy of any self-published book on consignment. This involves no risk on my part and it allows your book to spend some time on the shelf.  Just know that shelf space is at a premium. If after three months, the book hasn’t sold, it may wind up in the back room until there’s more room on the shelf.  

One cardinal rule: if you want me to carry your book and you live locally, you should make an effort to shop at my store.

Do: Make your book look as professional as possible.

Don’t: Have a spiral wire binding (unless it’s a church cookbook), laminated pages or folders.

Do: Send an email with details about your book. I love emails; I can’t misplace them and I can quickly refer to it when I need to. And they give me an easy way to contact you.

Don’t: Come to the store unannounced and expect me to drop what I’m doing to review your book. There’s nothing that puts me off more than this. Respect my time and I’ll be much more disposed to look favorably on your book.

Do: Call to follow up on the email you sent.  This reminds to review the email if I’ve missed it.

Don’t: Be hurt if I don’t remember your book right away. We see lots of books. My lack of memory means nothing, other than I just don’t remember. It’s not a condemnation of your book.

Do: Try to leave a reader’s copy if you want me to carry a novel. I do try to read them and if I like the book, I’ll happily take several copies.

Don’t: Get mad at me for asking for a copy to read. I know it’s expensive to have extra books; if you can’t have a copy for me to read, then maybe an excerpt would be good. I can’t just have things on the shelf I know nothing about. So give me so info that can help me sell your book.

Do: Try to price your book within the market ranges. I know picture books can be expensive to print, but a $25 paperback picture book will be hard to sell.

Don’t: Not listen to your local bookseller’s advice. No one knows the market better than your local indie. Listen to their hesitations about carrying the book. See what you can do to modify the price. We had one self-published book that was really overpriced; we recommended a different printer and she got a much better price. As a consequence of the lower price we were really able to sell the book. I think by the time the print run ran out, we’d sold over 200.

Do: Think regionally.  You’re much more likely to get your book placed if it’s got something to do local region. We’ve had good results with a book about boxers in Vermont.

Don’t: Expect a Vermont bookstore to carry a book about California ponies. 

Do: Have an invoice for consignment available when you want me to carry your book. In a perfect world, I would have my own form, but sometimes we run out, and it’s really helpful if you can keep track of the paperwork.

Don’t: Expect me to buy three copies of your book. It’s not personal; it’s business. Better to have the book on the shelf than not at all. We sold thirty copies of a Chapbook on consignment and it worked out well.

Do: Tell your friends and the press (if you live locally) that your book is available at my store.

Don’t: Not tell me if you’re going to be featured in the local paper.  Nothing is more frustrating than getting caught by surprise by not having a book on hand that’s been featured in the paper.

On the whole, the future looks bright for self-published books. With the increase in quality, the stigma of self-publishing is going away. Remember to make your book look as professional as possible and be patient.  We want you to succeed and nothing is more exciting than seeing a self-published book take off.

One new Don’t: Please don’t use the comments field to promote your own book. Those comments will be edited. This is a space for conversation, and as tempting as it may be to mention your titles, this isn’t the right venue for that. Thanks for understanding.

Picture a world comprised of book covers, book spines, and people cut from actual book pages. That’s the world created by Apt Studio and Asylum Films in the stop-motion video "This Is Where We Live" that they produced for the 25th anniversary of 4th Estate (an imprint of HarperCollins in the U.K.) some seven months ago, though I only just stumbled upon it today, completely by accident! I love the whimsical quality of this short film and am especially taken with the thought of paper birds emerging from paper trees. Beautiful!

If you enjoy this video you might also enjoying taking a peek at the production stills and watching the short time-lapse films of the animators cutting out scenes, the production team building the sets, the crew filming the shots, etc.

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

I am really glad I’m not a kid this summer. I have just amassed all the summer reading lists for the schools in our area. Why do so many schools feel compelled to force classics and only classics on kids during the summer? Why not mix it up, with some classics and some more current books? I understand wanting to expose to the classics because of the wrting and big themes, but these things exist in lots of Young Adult literature.  I’d get creative if I were planning an entire summer reading list — such as, if you want to read Twilight you must also read Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

I am very curious what you Shelftalker readers would put on a summer reading list for kids in the 7th to 12th grades. Next week I’ll tally the results and we’ll have our own Shelftalker list.

I’ll get the ball rolling with four of my choices:

The Human Comedy by William Saroyan
Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

So, let’s make a great list!