Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:03:43 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] [WSFA] Re: Want to *see*  the manuscript to the new GRRM book ?
From: "Elspeth Kovar" <ekovar at panix.com>
To: wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com
Cc: "WSFA members" <wsfalist at keithlynch.net>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Michael Walsh wrote:
>> Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at panix.com> 4/29/2011 4:04 PM >>>
>>Michael Walsh wrote:

<long url deleted>

>>> http://tinyurl.com/62ynng3

>>Bookstores, especially book store clerks, are going to hate him . . .

> The big question is this: on the standard bookstore bookshelf, can one
> copy or two copies can be faced out?

That's part of the automatic reaction as an abjectly terrified bookstore clerk: one.

Okay.  Shelves are pretty much as deep as a spine-out trade paperback. A rough ballpark of the width
of A Dance with Dragons indicates it's not only just one per face out, you should should have an
awareness of it in the back of your mind.  A hardback cover is heavy enough that now and then people
can leave it dangling over the edge.

> Also,  to make room on the shelves, a bunch of authors are going to
> have their books either shrink or vanish.

I haven't looked lately so don't have a precise image of my local bookstore's SF/F shelves but you
could easily do it and keep at least one copy of everything on the shelves.  But doing the section
properly?

(Humm.  The process is automatic but I've now thought it through to explain it.)

Get an idea of how much space George is going to need and scan through the mass markets, spining out
where it's obvious.  You still don't have enough room so keep making more.

Fit George in.

Look through the entire mass market section for SF/F, sometimes glancing back at the hardback
section, and start the shuffling books around.  X number of a book: do they take up more space
spined or faced?  How popular is this author?  If there are quite a few different books by an author
you want all of them in the same bookcase, or enough of those books in the next bookcase that folks
will easily notice that the author has more up there. Don't forget: you've already made some
decisions about facing out but may have to change them.  Oh, and have you compressed the hardback
section?  And you don't want the books wedged in tightly but also don't want a lot of empty space.
Etc.

But if you've worked in a store, and sometimes with your own books, you don't think it through, you
just do it.  And curse George, not as someone who produces books people love but as someone who's
written something this big!

E.