The Beginning

The story of this picture: These are the Guilty Pleasures authors, the Doves, my writing group from 2000 to 2007. We got a book accepted in 2002 and published in spring 2003. In August of 2002 we had a group author photo taken. We fooled around with all sorts of different "guilty pleasures" props (tiaras, etc.) and were inexperienced enough to choose as our jacket photo a more serious one than this, but this remains my favorite. The original is indeed in black and white -- remember, I think all book-jacket photos should be black and white! Left to right: Patti Smith Jackson, Jane Holwerda, me, Cathy Luh, Holly Silva, Karen Hammer, Sue Caba and Laurie Vincent.

This blog has been moved to classier quarters: the Sanity Bubble at www.bookeval.com/sanity-bubble. I'm still posting there! Every visit, every comment, is an honor for me. Go there, be confident, and take care of yourself, because....

. . .you are fate's finest instrument.

Touring a Bookstore

Every writer should tour a bookstore in the company of a manager. Did this yesterday for a class. The manager had 24 years' experience in the business. Bookstore facts:

• A new book's lifespan on the displays "up front" is seven to 21 days. The book then moves to "the stacks" or regular shelving.
  
• A new book's lifespan in the stacks is 90 days.
• After 90 days the bookstore and publisher begin the process of returning the unsold books to the publisher for credit.
  
• The bookstore's "bestseller" rack may be the bookstore's bestsellers, not the NYT's.
  
• New hardcovers can be priced at 20 to 30 percent off the cover price because the publishers have given the bookstore a promotion subsidy.
  
• Today's big-box bookstore carries about 95,000 titles. At peak in the 1990s, it carried an average of 135,000 titles. What got cut? Books from small publishers.
• At a chain bookstore, the displays at the ends of aisles, called "endcaps," are subsidized by publishers.
  
• On the shelves, some titles are displayed facing front, while others show only their spines. The publishers of the full-front books have paid the bookstore for the privilege. "It really sells books."