Questions and Answers (you will never hear in a bookstore)

We apologize for the delay in this weekend’s blog. Wendy was away writing, and Jack forgot!

Questions bookstore customers ask and the answers bookslingers long to give, but never do.

“Where do you get your books from?”

The book fairy brings them. At night. And we also get together with other bookstore owners and dance naked around the book conjuring cauldron on James Patterson’s birthday.

Gullible people like you who don’t know there are hundreds of pennies to be made on the sale of each and every hardback work of fiction ever published.

Oh, we just go to the library and search the dumpster.

Yard sales. And then we mark them up 400%. And spray them with Lysol if they smell like cat pee. What can I help you find today?

“So have you read all these books? Heh heh heh.”

Duh. You think I’d sell a book I hadn’t read?

Just the red ones. Heh heh heh.

Who, me? I’m sorry; I thought you were asking the shop cat. Yes, she has.

“Do you sell books?”

No. This is a drug front. Say the password so I know you’re not an undercover cop.

Only if we can’t talk you into a Nook or Kindle.

Sometimes, if we’re very lucky.

“So how’s this work, like a library, you borrow the books and bring them back?”

No. You buy the books and bring them back. Then if we like you we’ll sell them to you for another two weeks.

Yes, that’s how it works, but you have to give us your Social Security Number so we can sign you up.

Oh, is THAT how a library works?! I’ve always been afraid to try one, since I saw that HBO film as a child, where the librarian looks all sweet and kindly but is actually a soul-sucking demon from Hell.

“Is this the adult bookstore?”

That depends on how you’re using the word “adult.”

Get out. And wash that raincoat.

Why? Can you read?

It’s a Nice Place to Visit….

Since Little Bookstore‘s publication, many nice people from all sorts of interesting places have written via the blog or our bookstore’s Facebook page to say thoughtful, funny, sweet things about their experience of reading it. They tell us their own stories, comment on things that resonated with them, ask insightful questions.

Yesterday a woman sent me a sweet and slightly different note: I just read your book and your description of the disastrous trip to the used “bookstores” in Indiana and after checking the phone book am sure you were in my city! Please – you were in a rotten part of town – we have a wonderful Used Book Warehouse I think you would love!

Do all towns have such pleasant defenders? Betsy is right; I was in her town, and since we’re friends I can tell you that Evansville, Indiana was indeed the home of the infamous Fulton Avenue Books and Fuquay Avenue, chronicled in the “Booking Down the Road Trip” chapter of The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap.

What I didn’t know, but do now thanks to Betsy, is that nearby in Newburgh is a Middle Eastern cafe, an ethnic cookery style I love to sink my teeth into. So next time we’re passing that way, we intend to explore its delights. Thanks, Betsy!

But there is a funny continuation to this story. One of the things they teach you in Author 101 school (the three weeks between handing in your final edits and the pre-book events cranking up in earnest) is how to make and monitor an online presence: Facebook, blog, Twitter, Pinterest. I’m a natural at FB and love the blogosphere’s interaction; Twitter and Pinterest, I’m slowly figuring out. (All pointers gratefully accepted!)

The stats on my blog include a map of where people reading it are from, and what search terms they used to find it. About every three to four days, I find that someone has landed on my (if I do say so myself) cheerful little blog about a daily life full of colorful local characters, book browsers, kittens and sweetness, by searching “porn” “Fulton Avenue Books” “adult bookstores” or “Evansville.” (Sorry, Betsy!)

Can you imagine this person’s disappointment when up pops a pic of our latest kitty fosters (NO “kitty porn” jokes, thanks!) or the now-infamous photo of Jack from his birthday party? They may never recover….

But it does explain why my stats keep rising. ;] And I look forward to the Middle Eastern food.

IMG_3526jack birthday