Lilith Saintcrow

Morning. (Insert yawn, gap, and stretch here.) Links first! There’s an interview (10 Favorite Things) with me over at Book Chick City, as well as a giveaway. And decluttering your life. (Been doing a lot of that lately.) You can make jelly out of Mountain Dew. But if you want something a little less jet-fuel and a little more tasty, gingerbread pancakes are probably a good bet. (Thanks to Reader Kathy McC for that last one!) Last but certainly not least, tolerance in two stories: New York Mayor Bloomberg’s recent speech, and a piece on Abd el-Kader and the Massacre of Damascus.

Whew. That’s a lot of links.

Every once in a while, I like to work some retail to keep my hand in. Being on-call on a volunteer basis for that certain local used bookstore suits me fine. Yesterday I opened and closed the store, and as usual there was a certain amount of craziness. The owner calls it “the Vortex” because the weird swirls around and around, and sometimes funnels through with a gurgling noise.

I tried to warn her this was the rule more than the exception in working retail. She didn’t believe me, having been stuck in the corporate hell of a cubicle job for years.

Now she believes.

Anyway, yesterday I got called “Peggy”, was sized-up by a cologne-dunked man buying mythology, found textbooks online for a half-drunk college student, drank and made a lot of coffee, took in a lot of books, hand-sold some of those same books less than an hour later, explained why Clancy hardbacks just don’t sell, and just generally chuckled and meandered my way through the day. If one must work retail, a bookstore isn’t a half bad place to do it.

One funny side effect, though, is that people wander in with the damndest questions.

* “Where’s the liquor store that used to be here?” Answer: “It’s moved about a block and a half up the street, and that was over twelve years ago. You can see it from the edge of the parking lot. Good luck.”

* “Do you have a phone book?” Answer: “Yes.” Then a long beat of silence. Finally, the second question will come up, which ranges from “Can I borrow it?” to “Can I look something up in it?”

* “Do you have maps?” Not heard as often as just a plain, “Where’s X?” X can be the local museum, any other local business, any business in Portland, a random street number, an address, or (on certain memorable occasions) someone specific’s house. Usually, the people asking for someone’s house are pupil-dilated, disoriented, and have to learn to live with “I don’t know. Are you all right?” for an answer. People just think that when you work in a bookstore, you Know More, and will disperse that information rather like a search engine.

* “Where’s your bathroom?” OK, a lot of retail places hear this. It becomes time for a judgment call as soon as the words are uttered. Because for some reason, the loo of a bookstore is apparently second only in desirability to pub or music-store loos as a place to shoot/snort/whatever. So the answer ranges from “We don’t have one” to directions.

* “I’m looking for a book…but I don’t know the title or the author.” Answer: “Well, what do you remember about it?” Between what people remember of the cover or (less frequently) the story, we can usually find it. The owner used to laugh when I told her she would get this question and soon develop an encyclopedic knowledge of cover art people are likely to remember, as well as a finely-sharpened intuition about what title people are really looking for based on what they remember of the story.

* “Do you sell…magazines?” Answer: “No. Especially not those kind of magazines. Check the gas station down the street.” Which really, they don’t have any either, but it gets the men who come and ask this particular question out of the store. I mean, occasionally a dude will come in looking for a Ladies Home Journal or something, but that is by far the exception. Mostly they’re looking for Playboy. (For the articles. Yeah. Right.)

* “Oh…damn…where’s the bar?” Answer: “Right next door.” Yes, there’s a bar next door. Sometimes drunken patrons are sent over with trivia questions so we can settle the bets made over shots of something-or-another. Plus, their karaoke comes throbbing through our walls at night. It’s…interesting.

* “Where’s your fiction?” Answer: “What genre?” And a quick list: litfic here, mystery and spec fic (sci fi and fantasy) and horror and romance around the corner there, suspense and spy fiction in this room here, westerns up front…and nine times out of ten, the questioner will simply look at you bug-eyed and repeat, “Where’s your fiction?” Which generally means they have rarely been in a bookstore before and want a recommendation, because they don’t know what the hell they want, but they want something, dammit, and it’s YOUR job to see they get it.

* “Are you hiring?” Answer: “No.” Bookstores are pretty desirable places to work, either because the questioner thinks we’re edgy and snarky a la music stores, or because they think it’s easy. Just drink coffee and read all day! They have no idea about the customer service, the answering questions, the art of buying books and weeding the shelves to make sure they can breathe and tempt consumers, the little maintenance tasks…I could go on.

* “Do you buy books?” Answer: “We do, for in-store credit. We do not pay cash.” Around the end of the month we get this question about twenty times a day over the phone at least, and a few times in person. It’s amazing, though–98% of the questioners then say, “Oh, thanks.” And hang up. Or just hang up without the thanks. Sometimes they try to argue. “But I have pristine hardbacks!” (I am not kidding.) The most fun, however, came when I was working in new bookstores and people wandered in to ask this…

Every bookstore I’ve ever worked at (they’ve mostly been used bookstores, natch) has a board set up in the employee area with variations of these questions in different boxes, and some way of marking them off. It’s just like Bingo, only with retail and caffeine. Days when you get a bingo used to mean drinks after work for everyone on shift. Nowadays they’re more likely to spark a flurry of emails, mostly variations on “Guess what happened THEN?”

If you get a blackout on that board, though, it always means drinks after work.

I’ve worked a lot of jobs in my life, and a good proportion of them have been service or retail oriented. You get to see the best and the worst of humanity. I have a special place in my heart for working in a bookstore, though. Even on blackout Bookstore Bingo days, the regulars and your fellow employees more than make up for it. The joy of matching the right book with the right person, too. Those times that someone returns and says, “You recommended X to me, and I LOVED it!” make one happy to be alive. Plus, geeking about Litrachur with the oddest people–people you wouldn’t think twice about talking to if you saw them on the street, or people you would simply never meet because their slice-of-life is so different from your own–has to be one of the most sublime acts of social and intellectual connection I think I’ve ever experienced.

The greatest thing about it, though, is that working in a bookstore provides such awesome material. Nothing is as absurd as real life, nothing. Fiction has to obey rules. Reality is far zanier than anything a writer can come up with, but you can strip-mine it for the telling quirk, the tiny detail, the internally-consistent eccentricity.

I don’t get paid for any of the volunteer hours I put in. I have to tell you, though, the experience of the daily Vortex spin damn near pays for itself. At the very least it provides me with hilarity I don’t have to watch on a screen. And it reminds me that people are the most strange and wonderful oddities the Universe has going at the moment.

So if you’re working retail today, I salute you. I hope you’re getting great material. And I hope you’re only crossing off a few of those bingo squares…

Regular blogging will commence shortly. I know I haven’t been popping in much to say much of substance here. Deadline hell looms, as always, and I’m getting everything situated for another school year, as well as cleaning house emotionally, so to speak.

BUT, things are calmer. Summer is winding down, which means the publishing world is picking up speed again, thank goodness. Tomorrow I’ll be writing about my path to publication, since that’s the theme of the week over at the Deadline Dames. (You can read Dame Devon, Dame Jackie, Dame Rachel, and Dame Keri from earlier this week!)

But today, I’m sending in a first draft (gods willing, if I get this done) and heading out to Beaverton for my 7pm signing at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s. I will be reading from Defiance, book 4 in the Strange Angels series. (I am hard at work on the fifth and final book as we speak.) I will also be bringing prizes to be raffled off!

That’s about all the news. I’m going to dive back into this draft so I can hopefully give an editor a pleasant surprise before the weekend.

Hey, it could happen.

See you around!

Remember how I said there was some smack talk going on at the Powell’s event between Dame Devon and me?

Well, that smack talk has borne fruit. We are in the middle of a Dame Smackdown! Honor, lunch, and an excerpt are all on the line.

Here’s the deal. There are 15 signed copies of Flesh Circus, the latest Jill Kismet book. There are 15 signed copies of Magic on the Storm, the latest Allie Beckstrom. Devon and I have challenged each other: whoever has the most books sold by midnight next Sunday–June 6th–OR whoever’s signed copies sell out first, is the winner.

The winner will post an excerpt of an upcoming book on the loser’s blog. (I may be persuaded to post an excerpt of Jealousy.) The loser buys the winner lunch. Plus, there’s bragging rights involved. (I ADORE bragging rights.)

So now, dear Readers, it’s up to you. Our honor is at stake. If you’ve ever wanted a signed copy of a Kismet or Beckstrom book, now is a great chance! (Powell’s ships worldwide, too. I’m just sayin’.) If you decide to buy, make sure you use the links above, they’ll take you right to the signed editions in question.

Let the battle begin!

Well, that was the busiest week I’ve had in a while. And it’s only Thursday.

The Powell’s event was spectacular! If you were there and took pictures, please consider posting them on my Facebook fan page. I’d love to see them! There are some pics here, and Ilona Andrews blogged about the event. (There is Stealth Video of Ilona, it’s fabulous. She and Gordon are SO. CUTE. You just don’t even know.) Dame Devon Monk and I always get along like a house on fire, and I got to meet her kidlings and her husband.

I also got nominated for moderator duty, so I strapped on my katana and moderated my little heart out. I don’t think the power went to my head at all. Bwahahahaha. Oh, sorry. Did that evil laugh escape me?

Thanks to everyone who came–especial thanks to:

* Dina James, who brought evil cupcakes and a care package for me. Dina is truly evil. Not just kind of evil, like me. *grin*
* Flinx and his lovely wife-you guys are awesome.
* The ever-wonderful Marne, who told me how beautiful I am. *primps hair*
* Reader Shelly H, who made me cry in a good way. Still swingin’ for you, kid.
* My writing partner, who was front-row supportive like a Wonderbra.
* Teacher Diane–I finally got to apologize for swearing in front of her class. Sorry, Diane!
* The Martian Mooncrab, who brought me swag and also brought me a ton of research material. You’re a rock star, kid.

Thanks are also due to Saint Peter H. and Miles, the wonderful event organizers who made everything go smoothly; and to Powell’s as a whole. And thank you, very much, to everyone who came out into the rain and the cold to see us. It was wonderful to see so many fans, and the audience was very kind. There were many good questions–like how a writer deals with juggling several different projects (answer: pure panic) and what we do when characters won’t behave (answer: kill them. Ha. I’m not joking. Much.) And a shout-out to the very young Duncan, aspiring writer–no, I wasn’t offended, I was actually happy to hear the feedback, and I think you did fine.

Now, there was some Smack-Talking after the event between Dame Devon and me. Seems she and I might be running a contest with the leftover signed books from the event. We’re still working out the details, but I want to prepare you all: she fights mean, and honor (plus lunch) is on the line. So stretch out and get ready for a Dame BookFight! Details to follow.

I returned home that night exhausted but very happy. Events are draining, but they’re also a kick–there’s nothing like seeing the fans face to face and talking about these cool things we both enjoy.

I also went rock climbing this morning, and made it to the ledge. The ledge has been my goal for some weeks now, and it was incredible to finally make it. Between that and the public speaking I’ve been doing lately, I rather feel I’ve been fighting dragons. I’m looking forward to resting a bit.

Over and out!

Why was I up at 6am this morning? Oh, yeah. Getting the morning run out of the way so I can hit an early open climb at the rock wall. Yes, I am going to be attempting my first open climb. I hope nobody laughs at me and I hope I don’t embarrass myself. It’s bad enough that I’m going to be wearing capris. LOOK, I HAVE TO, ALL RIGHT? They allow freedom of movement and don’t interfere with my foot and toeholds the way jeans or my yoga pants do.

Anyway.

John Scalzi, as usual, hits it out of the park with Why “Punishing The Publisher” Usually Doesn’t:

So, on one hand, the attempt on the part of the potential reader to send a message to the publisher via the refusal to buy a particular work has succeeded. On the other hand, the message the publisher has received is “this author can’t sell.” To be fair, this has more to do with the publisher than with the reader. But that doesn’t change the result for the author. (John Scalzi)

YES. *points at Scalzi* What he said.

I wish I could make some people–including some people who have recently tried to take me to task and explain to me “how publishing REALLY works”–read this. Of course, it probably wouldn’t do a lot of good, for the simple reason that a lot of people who try to tell me “how publishing REALLY works” have no fricking idea; they have an emotional hobbyhorse to ride and it involves blaming Big Bad Publishing (which, like most straw men, doesn’t really exist) for their various ills in one way or another. I’d be a lot more likely to believe them and listen if they had, oh let’s say, any real publishing experience. And no, vanity press or one self-published missive full of typos does not count as experience that qualifies someone to be nasty or condescending to me about publishing.

But I digress. Moving on.

Scalzi highlights something I wish more people understood, and I know plenty of authors try to educate their readers about: that the publisher is generally consistently trying the best they can, but they are also hedging their bets. When bets are hedged and a reader decides to “punish” a publisher by not buying a certain author (especially when this “punishment” is aimed at something like a distribution problem that is not the publisher’s fault), what happens is that the author gets screwed. Which means that the reader has shot him/herself in the foot, because it’s now harder for the author to bring you those stories you love.

I’m not saying that readers shouldn’t be angry. What I’m saying is that readers need to direct that anger at the companies that are actually to blame–companies like Amazon, or distributors of ebooks who don’t like the agency model. Those are the institutions that deserve a reader’s ire in the current brouhaha over ebook pricing. Not the author, who ends up getting the full force of the misplaced “punishment”.

If you will, allow me to suggest to you another course of action in situations like these: Rather than “punishing the publisher” by not buying a particular book you would otherwise buy, support the author by purchasing the book. Why? Because the support you give an author allows that author to have a better bargaining position with the publisher the next time the two of them negotiate a contract, and you know what? Generally speaking, authors like being able to make potential readers happy, and thanks to that there thing called “the Internets,” authors are often aware of the wishes and desires of their readers and will try to make them happy whenever possible. (John Scalzi)

I know I do, dear Readers. Every other writer I know does, too. We want to make you happy. We like you.

Over and out.