The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist

Getting to Know Booksellers

160 Getting to Know Booksellers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You may be surprised to learn how powerful bookstore owners, managers, and book-​ buyers can be. Publishers usually send advance reading copies of forthcoming books to bookstores, whose book-​ buyers (the employees responsible for ordering books to stock in their store) will peruse. If any of the books are appealing, they actually read them. Independent bookstore book-​buyers are often the best-​ read people in the country, far better read than any professor of contemporary literature I’ve ever known. This is only one of many reasons to mourn the demise of independent bookstores across the country. Instead of having a well-​ read independent bookstore employee , who gets to know your tastes over time, recommend books for you to read—books that might have been published by smaller presses or books that might not have gotten their due in mainstream media outlets—you’re now going to be impersonally pushed, via paid placement, toward the bestselling books du jour that the publisher is investing its resources in or has paid too much of an advance for. But while there are still independent bookstores, there are still people of influence working in them. Nancy Olson, owner of Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina , is credited with selling 6,000 copies of one of her customer’s books. That customer was Charles Frazier, and the book was Cold Mountain. In fact, she sold 1,200 copies at his first reading at Quail Ridge, a reading to which Olson had invited such well-​ known southern writers as Lee Smith, Kaye Gibbons, Jill McCorkle, Fred Chappell, and Clyde Edgerton. I have absolutely no doubt that Olson’s efforts on behalf of her friend and customer proved to be that all-​ important spark that every book needs in order to end up a bestseller. Charles Frazier isn’t the only writer Olson has helped. Angela Davis-​ Gardner—a creative writing professor emeritus at North Carolina State University—had a difficult time placing her third novel, Plum Wine, which she had spent ten years working on. Her two previous novels, Felice and Forms of Shelter, had been published by major publishers but had sold modestly, and her agent eventually dropped her. On her own, Davis-​ Gardner placed her third novel with the University of Wisconsin Press, for which she received no advance. She was happy enough to have found a publisher for the book, but she Publicity 161 was beaten down by the entire experience. Enter Nancy Olson.Olson held a publication party for Plum Wine at her store. Somehow, Olson got the book in the hands of someone at Publishers Weekly, who then reviewed the book after publication, which they almost never do, given that Publishers Weekly is an industry magazine that reviews books two or three months before publication. The PW review prompted other newspapers to review Plum Wine. It also prompted a high-​ powered agent to contact Davis-​ Gardner about representation. The short of it is that Davis-​ Gardner’s previous novels are now back in print in paperback with a major publisher, the paperback rights to PlumWine were sold to a major publisher, and Angela Davis-​ Gardner is presently under contract with a major publisher for her fourth novel. If you were to ask her whom she credits for the good things that have happened to her, I suspect she would tell you Nancy Olson. Often, the first rumblings of buzz surrounding a book will begin with booksellers, and if there’s enough buzz, the book may start to gain momentum. It may become an Indie Next selection (formerly known as Book Sense 76), a group of twenty new books chosen each month by booksellers and promoted heavily throughout independent bookstores. Or, your book may become a staff pick. Have you ever seen those little hand-​ written endorsements by staff taped below the shelved book? Customers do read those! Paul Ingram, bookseller extraordinaire of Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City, will actually press his favorite books of the season into customers’ hands. Inkwood Books in Tampa sends e-​ mail blasts to its customers with staff recommendations titled Unchained Choices. All of these constitute buzz. It’s sometimes more difficult to get to know the managers of big chain bookstores, but it’s by no means impossible. I presently live in a city that has no independent bookstore, so when my second book came out, I introduced myself to the manager of one of the two chain...