Outlook on life

Zach's been keeping a daily running tally of the ins and outs of being the owner and operator of an independent bookstore, but I feel it's time I bring my own trials and tribulations to the table. Mostly, because of my outlook today.

Literally. Outlook has killed my day.

I've spent a good portion of my day sending out little feelers into the ether that is the internet. For those of you who are picturing tiny little baby squids swimming upstream into your email in-box, that's not what I mean, although it is a fun mental image. Essentially, I've spent my pre- and post- lunch time attempting to get Outlook to allow me to send a "hey, this is me and what I'm doing and a little about Wordsmiths Books" email to a handful of people I've not spoken to or heard from in a hot minute. These people include book vendors and publishers, as well as author press representatives. See, it is true that when you're in the "book biz", or whatever this may be, you get loaded down with free books. Publishers almost find it in their best interest to spend more money selling you as a book store on how awesome whatever Super Big Hit Book Of The Year is than they do on actually promoting the book to the general public.

This method of promotion, crazy and sense/centsless though it may seem, does make sense for the book publisher bottom line. The book-buying public has a relationship with those who sell books that includes a degree of trust that's almost unheard-of when it comes to more consume-and-dispose sorts of media, but one that puts booksellers in an interesting position-they're counted on to offer recommendations, and to keep track of not only the newest releases but also those of quality. As such, one free advance copy ("galley" or "advance reader copy/ARC" in bookspeak, which should get its' own post here eventually) of the new hot historical fiction novel can, in turn, sell 10 copies in a day.

However, in order for publishers to show up at your door or mailbox with handfuls of sock monkeys and pre-release hand-stapled galleys, they have to know you exist. And it's pretty much impossible to let anyone know you exist when Microsoft Outlook decides, around 10 a.m. in the morning, that the frequency with which you're sending email marks you as a spammer, and therefore you should lose access to your work email account for 24 hours.

Oh, but wait...there's more.

Even if Wordsmiths Books would eventually be found by publishers, and their "people" (meaning press/publicity folk, better known as the people who send the free stuff) would start talking to our "people" (meaning me), I, on account of Outlook deciding I'm engaging in some form of illicit business practice like selling kittens on Ebay, am now kept from being able to reach out to members of the media.

This is good news for them. This is bad news for me.

In trying to let everyone know who and what we are, as Zach so eloquently put it, we gotta find customers. And, as opposed to approaching every person we see in any location at all ever (which I'm neither far off from nor opposed to doing), it's my job to get media-the local press, small little indie papers, the Village Voice, the Decatur Dispatch-to care about what it is Wordsmiths Books is doing, and where/why we're trying to do it.

If I can't get to them, they can't get to me.

I'm also unable to reach business contacts, those people whose business it is to buy books for businesses. Once again-customers. Customers who can't just randomly assume you exist when they've never heard of you.

Thus, the stress of my day:a piece of technology invented to ease the day-to-day operations of working life has brought mine to a screeching, grinding, "ew that doesn't sound good you should really get that checked out" halt.

I might have failed today at getting us any acknowledgment from publishers, I might have failed at letting business contacts know we're here, and I might not have gotten media attention from anywhere (Decatur Dispatch, I'm looking at you!), but as I've been writing this the office phone has rung once. One email that got sent out today has been received, and the response was both rapid and friendly.

If I accomplished nothing else today, as least I got us listed in the phone book.