Friday, November 09, 2012

A Case of Piles

I never thought I'd be delighted to learn that I had a case of the piles.

No, not piles as in hemorrhoids, but piles as in stacks of my book in a warehouse.

The other night my son and I swung through the Costco in Ancaster and I couldn't stop myself from taking a picture of my book Haunted Hamilton sitting in a big giant stack.



There was my new non-fiction book sitting close to Rick Mercer, Lloyd Robertson, Red Green, and a crap-load of Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

#bigsmileonmyface

Of course, I had initially been a bit torn over this.

You see, I'm a huge supporter of local bookstores. As a bookseller, I want people to purchase my book at their local bookstore.  In particular, the awesome Epic Books and Bryan Prince (they both have signed copies of the book, BTW).  You can, of course, also find it at local Coles, Chapters and Indigo locations in Hamilton.  The point is that I'm a huge advocate for the importance of bookstores to a local community -- they enrich the neighbourhood they belong to, they add a special and unique cultural meeting place for book lovers.

But as an author I'm thrilled to see a giant stack of my books in a warehouse, meaning a heck of a lot more eyes are going to fall on this book. Meaning, sales are likely to be pretty solid. Meaning it's likely I'll earn out my advance and this book will actually be a profitable one for Dundurn Press.  Meaning, I won't be cast off as an author that burned through their publishing dollars without a proper return on that investment.

When I had expressed this concern to friends, many of them assured me it was okay to be delighted -- that a good majority of the folks who'd buy it from Costco likely aren't the same people who would discover it in their local bookstore.  That being in the big box outlet actually opens the book up to an entirely new demographic.

So I've decided to no longer be torn, just tickled about these great piles . . .

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