Imagine my surprise when, while wandering through the rows and rows and stacks and stacks and tables and tables of books at Barnes & Noble last week, I should happen upon the education section and see, staring back at me, my very own book.
Yes, it's finally happened. The moment we've been waiting for since my "Books and Authors" post in January of this year.
Added to the sensibility and readability of my book, I now have credibility, respectability and... availability!
These are all good things for people trying to prove they're authors not only because they can publish their own books, but because someone wants to read them.
I probably shouldn't have been surprised to see my book there. Afterall, it was me who, after writing tragically about not being in B&N, sent them a book to see if they'd like to carry it. It was me who worked frantically for months to get a distributor when they said they'd like to buy 100 copies but could only buy through a distributor. It was me who packaged 100 books in five different boxes and mailed them to four different places from Nevada to New Jersey. It was me who paid the postage to send them there, knowing I wouldn't make money on them even when I got my percentage after the distributor and bookstore and postman kept theirs.
Still, it was somehow a surprise to see "Keep the kids away from the power tools" sitting there, at about eye-level, cover out (not spine -- horror of marketing horrors) and waiting to be loved.
And now the miracle has to happen. Someone has to buy those 100 copies!
Someone who's perusing the aisles and tables and shelves at B&N has to choose my little book on what I learned about the world and teenagers and education by substitute teaching. Someone who's interested in people, in life, in learning. Someone who doesn't mind that it hasn't been featured on Oprah or isn't about anyone rich and famous. Someone who gets past the dislays on classics and New York Times best sellers and travel logs and science fiction fantasies all the way to the little section on education.
That will be the greatest and most welcome surprise.
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