Lessons In Stalking: Now in Borders

I met with the GM of the Greensboro Borders store today.  She couldn't have been nicer.  They took 5 of my books and, assuming those sell, will order more as needed.  More importantly, having the books in this store will enter me in their system.  So if someone in another state orders my book, they can see that one store already carries it.

The GM did say that the "trick" to being successful in their stores is to have people come in and order the book through the store. They pay attention when they keep getting requests for the same book time and again.  So even though I lose 40% of the top by having my book bought in the store vs. through my website, that's what I'm going to encourage people to do.  I'd rather have the book out and about at bookstores than make an extra $4.

I'll call Barnes & Nobles this week and see if I can get a meeting with their GM as well.

One Fun Thing

Here's a fun tidbit for the day.  My meeting with the GM took place in the Borders Cafe.  The GM was momentarily called away to handle an employee crisis, and some business men at the table next to me motioned to the copies of my book on the table and asked if I'd wrote it.  When I said yes, another man sitting at a different table perked up and said he would like to buy a copy.  So I sold a copy of the book and the two business men took a stack of my bookmarks and said they had places where they could hand them out.  Selling the book on the spot like that really made my day (Thanks, Reginald!).

I sent e-mails out to friends/family yesterday, letting everyone know the book was here.  One of the people I sent the e-mail to is the "class coordinator" for my high school, and she forwarded the e-mail to everyone in my graduating class that she had e-mail addresses for.  I've been getting a few e-mails here and there from people I haven't seen or heard from in 17 years.  (AACK!  17 years.  No way am I that old!)  I love hearing from them.  I've even heard from a few people that I really had little to no connection with, but they just wrote to say they thought it was great about the book.

People are wonderful.  I am so lucky to have crossed paths with so many exceptional people in my life.