The Little Guy

Only the most ungrateful of writers would take a vehicle for sales of their published book and turn away from it, right? I mean--these are sales we're talking about!

But I have been having increasingly negative feelings about certain large online sources.

I work for an independent bookstore, BookSmart in the South Bay Area (CA). Hardworking, dedicated people who truly love books, and book people. They are generous, they are not in it for the money (who is?), and they run an operation I'm proud to work for. It was my boss who pointed out the absurdity, in a way, of seeing one's book available online at Amazon.com as "having arrived." For that is indeed how I felt at first. The fact is, Amazon is one of the few sources who will advertise books for "pre-order" as many as 6 months before a book's publication date.

The more I thought about this, the more it left a sour taste in my mouth.

So I decided something. If you would like to support an independent bookstore, and do not have one in your area--first try to find one using the Book Sense Store Locator--and want to order a copy of my book, which would make me happy as a clam, and you send me an email (writelife(at)verizon(dot)net), specifying # of copies and your address, BookSmart generously agrees to give you a 20% discount. I will work out your total and I will personally send you the books. I know it isn't as elegant as Amazon, nor as convenient. But I want to give back to the small bookstores.

Join me if you dare!
JPR