Remember bookstores??

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I certainly remember bookstores. I was a Waldenbooks bookstore manager in Lawrenceville, NJ and then I was transferred to manage the "big" bookstore in Brooklyn, NY. At the time it was the highest volume store in the chain. It was one of my favorite jobs ever and I often refer to my five or six years managing bookstores as my version of an MBA - I learned so much. In addition to learning about book marketing - bomb scares, shoplifters, employees, um, making out in the stock room - I learned how to handle a lot!

But now that I'm on the other side of the book gondola, so to speak, - where have I been in the last nine days? A library in Greenwood, IN, a mystery conference in St. Louis, a street book festival in Brooklyn, NY, a casino in Uncasville, CT and a five state fair in West Springfield, MA. Nary a bookstore in sight. It isn't that I don't still love them and wouldn't go in a heartbeat if invited, but as bookstores disappear non-bookstore venues are becoming my bread and butter. I don't mind sharing space with gamblers and people selling chamois mops (what ARE those things and why do people need so many?) if it means that I can meet readers and chat them up.

Maybe the fact that I used to be in Special Markets Sales when I was in the video business prepared me for this. I sold adventure travel videos to sporting goods stores, fine arts videos to opera houses, puppy videos to pet stores! Never sold to video stores.

A very sweet woman actually said to me today (at the Big E) "wow, how often do you get to meet a real writer?" And a father said to his three daughters "this woman wrote all these books!" Forget the ego boost - wait a minute, let's not forget the ego boost, there are far too few of those in life - when people see your books and hear a few words about them they BUY them.

Yes, I know I could "sell millions online for 99 cents" in my jammies, from the comfort of my living room. But for how many people is that really working ? Four? Five? One hundred? And how many thousands more are deposting $10 checks from Amazon because no one knows they exist.

Of course, I'd like to do it all - be an online hit, see my books stacked a mile high at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square and have them fighting to get into Aunt Agatha's in Ann Arbor to hear me speak. But tomorrow, I'm heading back to The Big E where I'll stand in the Connecticut bldg. I'll bring my little "show in a basket" - bookmarks, signs, badge holder, biz cards, etc. and talk to hundreds of strangers, many of them carrying chamois mops.

What's the strangest place you've ever sold books or seen books being sold?

On State Fairs and County Fairs

THE BIG E

RO: This week I spent some time at The Big E, New England’s legendary five state fair. I can’t remember the first time I went .. easily twenty years ago. My friend Alan (or maybe it was old boyfriend #2, Lee)turned me on to it. Milking contests, monster truck pulls, exhibitions of working sheep dogs, cooking contests and blue ribbons for the biggest pumpkins (this year's winer over 600 lbs.) What did a girl from Brooklyn know about stuff like that? It was all new to me and surprisingly enough, I loved it. Call it too many viewings of Green Acres when I was a kid.

Who knew there were so many different breeds of chicken – and that some of them were quite beautiful? Thery made it hard to order the chicken fingers so I went for salmon-on-a-stick and a baked potato – the two Maine specialities which have become my end-of-summer treats and must be consumed on every trip to The Big E. (Up until this year I resisted the infamous Big E cream puff. Be afraid...my inner calorie counter went off the charts.)

For the last two years in addition to eating, shopping and admiring the livestock, I’ve been meeting readers at the CAPA booth (Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association) in the permanent Connecticut building and I did that again this year. But the main attraction is the fair. All those exhibits...all that food. People with straight day jobs reliving their rock and roll pasts..lots of garage bands performing covers of 80's hits. And what's the deal with the mops and the chamois cloths? Do people wait all year to buy their cleaning supplies?

In any event, there’s something – dare I say it – American about it. Anyone else have those cow dabs between their toes?

JAN: I've been to the Big E, and more frequently the Aggy Fair on Martha's Vineyard. You're right, there is something so American about it, you feel like Jimmy Stewart had got to be in the crowd somewhere. I have to admit the livestock don't do anything for me, but I love the fiddle contest.

RO: Jimmy Stewart. Or Paul Newman, or William Holden. Now that I think of it there were county fairs in a lot of movies from the 50's, which were the first grownup movies I can remember watching on television. Picnic and The Long Hot Summer. Men in suits, with hats and ties at a picnic. (I still love Picnic...Moonglow and I Could Write a Book were the two songs at my wedding.)
How about women in cocktail dresses with white gloves! How cute was Joanne Woodward?

Well...no one like that at The Big E, but there was a sheep shearing contest that was a little like the scene from The Thornbirds...anyone remember that? Why in the world would Meggy Cleary want a priest when Bryan Brown was available all hot and sweaty? Bryan wasn't there. (Absolutely shocking that there's no pic available online of Rachel Ward salivating over a shirtless Bryan Brown...I must watch that miniseries again.)

No Jimmy Stewart or Joanne Woodward either, but I'll keep looking.

Maybe next year I'll wear a dress.

In the meantime how cool is this - some kid decorated a pumpkin to look like a puffer fish.
Future artist.

RHYS: Living in California, this is something I've never really experienced. We have a county fair and a state fair, but they feel like city folk pretending to relive the good old days. I mean--pie baking contests in Marin? I'm sure everyone got their pie from the same high end caterer who does their own soirees! And the State Fair in Sacramento is always too hot and too high tech, thrill rides etc. One of the things I love about New England is that feeling of stepping back in time. When we were driving through Vermont in the summer we had breakfast on a front porch in a small village. Local people wandered in and out for their morning cup of coffee. Everyone stopped to talk. I almost bought a house there on the spot.

RO: Yup, we New Englanders are just plain folk!