Writers supporting Writers
We all love books and the written form.
I imagine that you enjoy visiting bookshops, and not just the big and bright chainstore book depots that you find at motorway junctions and in city centres. These are great of course, sometimes simply for the sheer volume of stock they carry as well as for the hours of enjoyment they give for the browser who also wants a coffee house in-store!
But the little, pokey, out-of-the-way places that are dimly lit, smell of ink and fusty paper are also high on my own list of places to be and to experience.
Whenever you find yourself in a book store here is a little plea from one writer to another.
Where you see a book that you love and already have in your collection, take the book from it’s spine-out position and place it on the same shelf with the whole cover in view. Do this for books you love, for the books that inspired and lifted you. But also do it for the writer of that book, for their livelihood and professionalism, for their income and their increasing circulation. Do this so that someone is more inclined to pick it up and have a look at the jacket blurb, and maybe they will even open the pages and read the thing! Why do publishers place so much emphasis on the cover artwork or the clever descriptions on the back, and then the bookstores have to place the books spine-out!
It is good to have your books reviewed and exciting to know that they are selling and moving off the shelves. But is is arguably more exciting to talk with a reader who found your book came into their life at just the right time for them to take something from it.
So next time you are in a book shop, find that book that made a difference for you and place it cover out on the shelf so that another soul will connect with it. You might help the next reader discover something special, and you will certainly make the author happy.
Nick Sturgeon runs an annual Retreat for Non-Fiction Writers and in November 2008 this will be held in a beautiful venue on the North Yorkshire Coast for a small group who want to see themselves in print and earning from their writing. nick@smallbusinessbigprofit.co.uk for more information.
