Book Expo America 2011: Perverts Like Books

At BEA today, I'm enjoying myself at the Steidl booth when I see a white-bearded, pear-shaped man in his fifties.  He's wearing an author's badge, which doesn't make him one. 

Apparently, Santa's pervert brother doesn't know how to use the internet to find soft core porn, because he's leafing through the coffee table books, stopping on pages with topless or nude women, and snapping pictures.  Not surreptitiiously, not digitally or on a cell phone, but with a Nikon that has a fucking zoom lense.  He's not in any hurry, either.  He doesn't look a bit self-conscious or guilty.

I can't believe what I'm seeing.  A woman standing next to me stares, jaw dropped, open book forgotten in her hands, contemp and disgust crumpling her face.  With a camera that nice, he clearly can afford internet access.  He could be at home typing "nude women" into a Google image search, but no - he wants to share this behavior with us.

I can't shake a vague feeling of guilt, like both of us having dicks makes me an accomplice.  Before anyone can assume my presence indicates approval of his actions, I take the coward's way out and bail.


A short time later I overhear this conversation between a twenty-something, lovely sales rep and a different guy, also in his fifties, also bearded, also shaped like a pear.

Customer Service Rep: Are you a bookseller?  Or a librarian?

Bearded Pear-Shaped Perv: I'm an author.

(Aaron's Silent Judgment: Yeah, right.)

CSR: What do you write?

BPSP: Whatever I get paid to write. 

[He laughs like he's the funniest thing on two feet; she maintains her customer service smile.]

CSR: Like what?

BPSP: Mostly non-fiction, travel narratives, that kind of thing.  Why do it if you're not getting paid for it, am I right?

CSR: Sure.

BPSP:  I've found that going into a bookstore and seeing your book on the shelf is better than sex.

At this point, he's standing very close to the rep.  His voice is still pitched normally, like he's being jovial.  Really, he's fucking with her.  His eye-contact burns.  He's trying to see how much she'll put up with, and he's enjoying her discomfort.

After a very pregnant pause, she says, "I don't know about that."  And he says, "The first time, the first time."  She walks him around the booth and shows off her publisher's books.  He laughs at his own jokes, stands a little too close, and stares at her a little too intently.  He wears a wolf's grin the whole time.

I probably don't need to tell you this, but after working eleven years in the book business, the last seven as a buyer, I've never heard of this "author."

I would like to slap both of these guys.  Their existence reinforces the stereotype that readers only love books because they are unable to function within normal social parameters.  Their actions also create a hostile environment for the women around them, and the men who give a shit.  Really, they're making it tougher for me to be me.

Maybe I'm being too sensitive; it could have been worse.  I could have seen this guy:

Awkward Moments with Authors Come in Twos

This week Mitchell introduced me to two authors.  Both men, both well-respected, prolific writers whose work I have at home, but neither are authors I've read.

The first conversation went like this:

ME (on the way to clock out): How's it going, Mitchell?

MY BOSS: Good, good.  You want to meet Fred Savage?

ME: Not really, no.  

MY BOSS: Hey, Fred, I'd like you to meet someone.  Fred, this is Aaron.  Aaron, this is Fred.  Aaron is one of our buyers.  He's a big, big fan of your work.

ME (grinning hugely): Good to meet you!  Wow, great stuff this time!

FRED SAVAGE* (not buying it for a minute, not even a little):  . . . 

ME: So. . .

FRED: I like your tattoo, Aaron.

The second encounter went like this:

ME (on the way out): S'up, MK?

MY BOSS: Hey, how's it going?  Do you want to meet Idi Amin?

ME: No, I'm good.

MY BOSS: Idi, this is Aaron.  Aaron, this is Idi.

ME (holding my hand out): Hi, it's good to meet you.

[IDI AMIN** stares past the proffered hand, saying nothing.]

ME (still holding hand out): Uh.... I'm one of Mitchell's buyers.

[IDI AMIN continues to ignore ME's hand, saying nothing.  ME's hand falls, his smile wilts.  A fissure opens up in the ground, and ME steps inside.]

This is why I'll be avoiding my boss in the future.

As further proof of the world of awkward twos, two authors offered to memorialize themselves on my ass.  This is a first for me which managed to happen twice in just a few months.

The first was the mighty Brock Clarke, who I've written about once or twice.  He was in town for the early release of his third novel, Exley.

I'm fucking awesome; buy me.

We drank the night away before I realized he hadn't signed my poster for An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes in New England, a brilliant piece of marketing with quotes from the book set up as rules to follow when torching historic homes.  I was thinking it would look lovely with my signed posters for Choke and Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  Plus, I was going for an even fifty for things I need to get framed.

Two am was a distant memory.  Brock was understandably reluctant for me to run across the street, open the locked store, grab the poster, and run back.

"I'll be back for Miami Book Fair.  I'll sign anything you want, I promise."

Seeing my lack of enthusiasm for this idea, Brock offered his Ace in the Hole.

"I'll sign your ass," he said.

I worked Miami Book Fair, but my ass and Brock's pen somehow missed each-other.

A few months later, this happened:

PHASE 1: This will be awesome - wheeeee!!!  Thanks so much, Lane!

PHASE 2: She realizes she is the most ticklish person who currently exists.

PHASE 3: Lane discovers how hard it is to erase wavy Sharpie Lines from skin.

(and if you haven't already, buy It's a Book now)

After mortalizing the bibliophile monkey inside Becky's biceps, Lane Smith was on a high.  When he found out Becky and I were a couple, he turned to me and said, "How about one for you?  I could put it right on your ass."

Here's what he suggested:

That, of course, is Stinky Cheese Man.

Oh Lane Smith, my favorite jackass***, you know me so well.


* Not.
** Not, either.
*** His words, not mine!

Books & Books: A For Profit Business

Customers really don't understand the book business at all (given the upheavals it has gone through in just a few years, and continues to go through, some of us working here don't get it either).  As a customer, I don't really need to know the behind-the-scenes machinations which bring me an espresso to enjoy a caffeine jolt.  Still, I know every time Aaron buys espresso at Starbucks, and Dick buys latte at Seattle's Best, and Harry buys  whole bean at Dunkin' Donuts, there's not a big mountain of coffee somewhere with an office on top of it, gathering the funds and redistributing them to the coffee business as a whole. 

Because I understand these businesses are in competition, I'd never go to a tasting at Pasion del Cielo with a pound of Starbucks, or sit down to read at Cafe Demitrio with a mug of Anniversary Blend.  Who would?  People who believe there is a Book Fairy orbiting the globe, gathering book money wherever it's spent and sprinkling it over booksellers everywhere, that's who.

Before I tell this galling story, I'd like to acknowledge that I've used the words "business" and "competition."  I'm saving posts about the skewed playing field the A-word enjoys for a later date, so let's set all that aside to talk about the Book Fairy.

There isn't one.

One thing Books & Books has always wanted, and has been asked to start a time or two, is a reading group for young adults.  With YA the one part of the bookselling world which is still exploding, this wish / request seems more important than ever.  So when we were approached to host a YA book club, we said yowza.  

After a month of preparation, including a lot of back-and-forth with the Igirl running the club (and the Igirl mom) during our hectic book fair season, we were ready.  The turn out was excellent.  The decorate-your-own cupcakes portion of the proceedings was a huge success.  They chose one of the three recommended titles to discuss for next month's meeting.  You could cut the book excitement with a knife.     

Then our children's manager watched in horror as Igirl told the group they could check the book out at the library, or buy it on Amazon.

Are you kidding me?  Have you been calling or emailing Amazon four times a week for the last month about this event?  Did Amazon suggest the titles you were choosing from?  Did Amazon spend an hour-and-a-half making the bookmarks you snatched up?  Did Amazon get up at eight in the morning (on a Sunday) to bake the cupcakes you wolfed down?  Did Amazon clean up the mess you left?  You know what, Igrrrlz, if you love Amazon so much, have Amazon a clear one of their rooms and set up chairs for your next meeting.  Oh, that's right - YOU CAN'T.

Guess what?  The money you spend on Amazon doesn't go to the Book Fairy and then back to Books & Books, it goes to Seattle.  Meanwhile,  your community in general and Books & Books in particular both languish.  You've used us to play host, cost us time and money, and used our store to advertise on online retailer which really doesn't need the extra exposure.

Don't be surprised to find us less hospitable in the future.    

Deadline

Come, the text read.  Live with me for three weeks in a house that isn’t ours. Please.


Becky lives with her parents.  For some people, this is a deal-breaker.  I remember when I worked at Starbucks.  My fellow baristas swooned over dark, handsome, buff, triple-grande-four-sugar-nonfat-latte after he left.  They watched him walk through the parking lot and stand at the bus stop, and a collective so-much-for-that wind blew through them.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” one of them answered, while the others laughed.

I was new to urban life and Miami, unaware that the rules of attraction are entangled with economic success to the point where personality is an afterthought.

Now when I read a chapter of Sex and the City called "Bicycle Boys," I know exactly where I stand with a certain type of woman, a woman who is everywhere in places like Miami.

Thankfully, Becky is not that woman.  She’s also not the deadbeat who can’t move out, or the child who refuses to grow up.  She’s in a class with a few of my friends, people who flew solo for a time and crashed into relationship wrecks, or career derailments, and found themselves moving back home.
Miami is an expensive place to live.  You either need a place smaller than the living room I’m typing this in (like the Treehouse) or you need a roommate.   And what roommate in her twenties wants a five-year-old tagging along?

I’m typing this in a place bigger than the Treehouse, Becky’s parents’ living room, because Cleo Mater and Cleo Pater are traveling the Mediterranean for three weeks.  This gives Becky, Cleo Junior, and me a taste of what living together would be like.  Apparently, I would bake more and write less.  Much, much less.

“You’ll never live with me after this,” she told me.  “I’ll destroy your writing career.”  Which might be true, if I had a writing career.

“It’s an adjustment,” I told her.

I need my discipline back.  I can’t afford to snooze when Cleo Junior comes curling into my lap before seven (I suppose I could tell him I’m busy, but who the hell wants to be that guy?).  Two hours might be all I get, a world of time in the right circumstances.  I also can’t afford to watch DVDs into the night, unless I want to be a zombie the next day.  These are habits which can be adjusted, ironed out.  If the home is filled with love, everything finds a way.

Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried.

When reading at Books & Books a couple of years back, Jodi Picoult laughed when asked about writer’s block.  She has a gaggle of children (one of whose poor health inspired My Sister's Keeper), and any spare minute to write that she can squeeze into her day isn’t spent wringing her hands over ideas.   Diana Abu-Jaber recently adopted a child, and she’s been grilling writers on how they get anything done.   Waiting for author Chris Cleave to begin speaking about Little Bee, I saw her writing longhand on a legal pad.  I could be them soon.

Thankfully, I haven’t been lazy.   I’ve pushed the cursor hard, and I didn’t put my life on hold to do it.

Looking back, I probably put in all those hours in preparation for this time, when I’d need to make every available minute count.  I’ve always done my best writing pushing against something, be it a job, a deadline, or a self-imposed goal.  When I look back on these three weeks, I’ll realize this was the turning point, when a string of zero-snooze days stopped feeling like a victory and became habit.

More importantly, it will be the time I tasted my future and found it sweeter than anything I’d imagined for myself.

Happens Every Day

I’ve just finished reading Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies. Check this out:

“Josiah made me feel badly about our fights. And I did feel badly that we fought, but I also thought it was explainable.”

Gillies didn’t feel bad; she felt badly, indicating not negative emotions but that the mechanism which allows her to feel is broken. Including this “and,” she also began three sentences with conjunctions in one paragraph. I know, I know - writers bend this rule for emphasis and style. But come on.

“Professors may get paid well under a hundred grand a year,” Gillies writes, “but if you take advantage of the little perks here and there you start not to feel so bad about that number.” She had referenced salaries in the sixties and seventies a few times earlier in the book, but this line stuck in my craw. She also puffs herself and her Oberlin, Ohio neighbors up for not having “help” in the form of nannies, cooks, and cleaning women (which she admits they would if they’d stayed in New York City) as though they deserve medals.

“As we passed the airport in Cleveland…the DVD player that was built into the car went dead. Lots of people, parents of young children especially, when they read this might call out aloud, ‘Go to the nearest Wal-Mart and buy a $120 DVD player!!!’”

Actually, those of us who grew up sleeping six to a bed on holidays and tumbling around in vinyl backseats on five-hour drives to our nearest relatives on a regular basis thought, “Wow, your car has a built-in DVD player?” Followed quickly by, “Don’t you know any freaking car games? Because my parents sure did!!!”

According to John Dufresne, you get “maybe three” exclamation points in your career; Isabel Gillies used all of them in that one sentence. I used my three to illustrate how annoying I found her sentence.

But Gillies also has an endearing, self-deprecating wit. She gives her husband a long speech trying to reconcile things, a series of choppy sentences expressing her feelings, then she writes, “I wish sometimes I could just say one or two knockout sentences instead of twenty mediocre ones, but it’s how God made me.”

I picked up a memoir about a dissolving marriage knowing it would call up emotions I’d have a hard time facing, so why was I focusing so much on our class differences? Why did I pick her grammatical choices to pieces? It was easier to ridicule and distance myself from this woman than to admit that she’d written some of the most painful, intimate details of my heart.

I don’t have children, so I can’t know how it feels when the other half of your child rips away. But I know how it feels to love someone until it overflows from your pores, to be so toppled by someone’s brilliance that their thoughts and opinions shape everything in your life, to be so deeply happy that you can’t believe your luck. I know how it feels when that leaves.

Izzle wrote about the panic. She explored the helplessness. The dizzying speed with which it happens and the indifference of the turning world. She talked about life losing its context, about trying to find happiness and beauty in the tiniest things, about throwing herself on the mercy of her friends.

Exactly.

You think you’re done with the pain, that you’ve gone through it and come out stronger. Then you realize you are still going through it.

Losing context; that’s stuck with me the most.

I recently talked with Becky about the five things which most define me. A year ago, I had my list ready. Writer. Male. Mixed-Race. Lover. I felt the thing which most defined me was “Husband.” Without that, I’ve floundered to find who I am. I'm still Mixed-Race, but does it come before Writer or after? I’m not sure. I’m still a man, too. After those three… American? Divorcee? Survivor? Chronic Masturbator? Avid flosser?

Becky worries about the rekindling of something between my ex and me. I worry whether this new version of me will share my values and beliefs. It's a very odd feeling, realizing you don't trust yourself.

SOBE Two

Then again, South Beach Wine and Food Festival isn’t all bad.

Bobby Flay usually demos and signs later in the weekend, but he opened this year. He’s been nothing but nice to me, and I’ve never heard him be anything but agreeable, outgoing, and professional to his fans, but in four years working next to him I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that he’s kind of an asshole. I think it’s the set of his brows; he always looks like he’s judging.

Well as long his books keep selling, he can judge all he wants. Books & Books needs the Bobby Flays and Paula Deens and Emeril Lagasses to be as successful as they are to make these events worthwhile.

One woman drunkenly bypassed everyone waiting in the rain to meet the Neelys. When security told her she needed to buy a book at Books & Books and wait in line, she mocked him. “Buy a book! Buy a book!” she screamed, like oh, it’s all about the money. “I’m not buying any fucking book.”

One of the security guys politely asked her to take her drunken mess down the road.

The celebrity chefs don’t need book money; they’ve been paid advances for their efforts. Books & Books needs the money. I’m sure chefs aren’t thrilled when folks put a poster or apron in front of them for signing, but my vision goes red and my teeth grind down.

Buy. A. Book. You. Cheap. Mamma. Jamma.

Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be the happy post?

Your toes are in the sand and people bring chocolate and alcohol to you on trays. There’s live entertainment in the form of drunken antics, odd characters, and barely-covered skin. Call it dinner theater of the sweaty elite.

And oh, what food. Fresh-baked cornbread cracker with a sweet potato spread and roasted duck on top. Stone Crab. Hot and sour soup with shrimp. Angus steak with a sprig of rosemary. Battered shrimp on a stick with mango salsa. Roast beef with horseradish sauce. Cupcakes. Every chi-chi hotel restaurant and SOBE eatery brings their “wow” dish.

Thankfully, I’m not a reporter. I sucked down prosecco, breakfast stout (!), rum, vodka, lemon-infused bourbon with ginger ale (far more delicious than it sounds), absinthe (seriously), and several delicious wines, so no one expects me to remember any of the eateries for later explanation. The Jello shots, for instance. I remember the guy naming four ingredients. Some signature item at their hotel bar on SOBE. I remember the crowd made jokes about the year, or college, or whatever. I remember they tasted delicious. But if you want to find out where to go on SOBE for a gourmet Jello shot, you’ll have to Google it.

The best part is, all of this is bite-sized. You can be a glutton without getting full. You can be a lush without getting drunk.

Well, that’s true for those of us working the festival. Some festival-goers were stumbling over the sand by noon, falling over themselves by three, and belligerent by five. But they’re the minority. Most people are just boisterous and looking for a fun time.

Anthony Bourdain hasn’t been to the festival since his child was born, but he came back this year to close the festival with Eric Ripert. The two of them had crowds at the demo and folks in line cracking up. They had people at the Books & Books tent smiling, trying to keep the tables stocked with books.

I ate delicious food, talked books with some folks, got a nice buzz, saw a full double-rainbow spanning the horizon, and was escorted home by the Queen of the Nile.

Taken as a whole, I’ve got nothing to complain about.

SOBE One

You haven’t heard from me in a while because of the South Beach Wine and Food Festival. Books & Books has been the sole bookseller for this event for nine years. With so much going on at work, virtual (online) me has disappeared.

The South Beach Wine and Food Festival is also the reason I was in the accident three years ago. Well, God is the reason (or capital F Fate, if God makes you uncomfortable) but SOBEW&FF is all I was thinking about as I drove to work. Instead of focusing on the treacherous roads, I’d set my mental cruise control. The bulk of my mind was in the receiving room at Books & Books, ensuring Conway Freight dropped off the pallet of Chronicle cookbooks they’d been holding, receiving Chronicle and some other stragglers and turning them around to bring with me to the sand.

As Yoda said, “Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing.”

The accident put a hex on SOBEW&FF for me. As fun as it is working barefoot in the sands of South Beach, with the breathtaking views of rolling turquoise waves and cleavage all over the place, I couldn’t bring myself to work there.

In 2009, I decided to brave the sands again. I had been tracking SOBEW&FF book sales for five years with three detailed spreadsheets and had everything figured perfectly. Come Sunday, we could have fit our returns in Mitchell’s truck. Gone were the days when our rented U-Haul was so heavy with returns it got stuck in the sand, gone were the eleven PM pack-ups. Half hour after the festival ended, it was Miller time.

When I moved from bookselling at the store level to a desk in the buying office, I lost something in the way of job satisfaction. I have a row of smoldering disasters waiting to burst into flame. While I’m tending the worst of them, three more flare out of control. Keeping everything crackling but not critical is a neverending task. In addition, Books & Books is not a place for people who need a lot of positive feedback. Or even feedback.

SOBEW&FF, there is planning, ordering, receiving, making a bookstore in the sand, selling, packing up, and returns. Clear steps, clear goals, and a conclusion. Because the ordering was so precise last year, my co-workers drowned me in praise. I loved it. The hard work I do in the shadows on a daily basis was brought to light.

I’ve been looking forward to SOBE 2010 for a year, anticipating another moment in the sun.

Well.

Some festival goers say that at $215 bucks a ticket, they should get their books for free. Sorry, no. Books & Books is a for-profit business. I say, since you shelled out $215 for fourteen hours of entertainment (and at least $30 for parking) over two days, why not add another $30-$40 for a collection of recipes from your favorite chef, a cookbook which will be around long after you're buried? You’ll wait an hour-and-a-half in line at Disney for a two-minute ride, why not wait a few minutes to get a cookbook signed?

We didn’t sell as much as we usually do. Festival-goers packed the two big tasting tents at the opposite end of the sand. It looked like a huge block party. Buying cookbooks was not on their agenda, which probably looked like this:

1 – Get the largest pour possible of whatever will make me tipsy.
2 – Eat some delicious morsels.
3 – Get hammered and / or shitfaced, whichever comes first.

People’s lives are strained right now. SOBEW&FF was an excuse to blow off steam, with a price point which insured rubbing elbows only with other well-to-do individuals.

Maybe I’m weathering the recession better because my lifestyle has pared down from minimally indulgent to borderline monastic; how do I know they haven’t scratched and scrimped for their tickets and their parking . . . and their Gucci sunglasses and fake breasts and spray tans and sand-filled Prada loafers and Fendi handbags and rhinoplasties and collagen lips and facelifts and who am I trying to kid I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU ALL there’s nothing real about you except your money, so use it to support your local independent bookstore, you drunk fucks!

I should have said that. Clearly, missed my calling. I should have been in marketing.

Here’s looking at 2011.

I'm Not a Class Whore, But...

I entered a lot of frontlist at work this week. Publishing happens in seasons and there are sets of catalogs for each one. I'm not sure how other bookselling software programs work, but at Books & Books we go through the catalogs by hand and manually put the titles into our inventory. I found the author bios grating.

The authors are attractive. Their photos look like actor's headshots, some of them as large as the book jacket. Call that a byproduct of the media age. The new reality of marketing is if all other pieces of the work - talent, potential audience, story - are equal, then pick the one who looks sexy on a dustjacket. That's irksome, but expected. Like marketing hyperbole, urgent promises that this debut author's brilliant voice is a unique contribution to the pantheon of literature. But the pedigrees, those were like splinters in my brain.

Apparently, I should have worried less about exercising my craft while others are asleep, stealing a few precious hours before it's time to go to work, and worried more about my college career. To fit in with other authors in the fall catalog, I should have majored in English or History at an Ivy-league college and moved to New York City upon graduation. Preferably to Brooklyn. Well, I didn't do those things. I've lied many times about getting a full scholarship to Yale, most notably when I'm not directing my own life enough, but that never happened. My high school guidance counselor told me my ACT and SAT scores were good enough for Yale. Over the years of grease-smelling clothes and heat-lamp burns and kissing shoppers asses, that counselor's encouragement became a full scholarship. I use that lie to prove I had potential at one point, even if I'm not doing much of much with my life. Except it's a lie, and all it proves is that I sometimes suffer from low self-image.

I didn't want to go to college. I was interested in art and writing - what could a classroom possibly teach me about those things? I've since learned this is a family trend. Promotions have been declined. Opportunities ignored. Chances wasted. Our family values intelligence and learning, but actually turning that knowledge into a lucrative career is beneath us in a way I don't understand. So we scrape by and keep the best of ourselves hidden from the world.

Really, I'm afraid. I'm so afraid of failure I can't even try.

But I look at these children of privilege and their debut novels and tell myself, "See? Writing is for the elite. It's a little club you'll never get into." I laugh in recognition at Geoff Dyer's writing struggles in Out of Sheer Rage, but I also hate him for all that free time he has to lounge around Europe. He expresses jealousy of the enjoyment working people get out of holidays and weekends, and I want to slap his handsome British face (it would also be easier to take if he wasn't so fucking talented). Reading the dinner parties of James Salter and John Cheever hasn't helped, nor has working in a ritzy subsection of Miami like Coral Gables, or slurping oysters with trust-fund-private-school-yachting-teens at Monty's in Coconut Grove. I am seething, ignoring the choices I've made in favor of decrying the life I've been dealt.

Pathetic. Profoundly useless. Spoiled, in its way.

I've written past the point where being published matters; it's my only way of processing the world. For instance, writing this post has shown me why this is bothering me so much lately. I need to get over it and buckle down. Compared to the obstacles I put in front of myself, class is nothing.