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| Great White North |
| Anybody out there seen my book? |
| 2006-11-02 |
| EFL You won't sell my book in Canada? Why, I'm flattered MARK STEYN Some years ago, back when this here Internet thing that the kids are crazy over was brand new, I remember reading a piece about Amazon.com. And some fellow was wondering whether he should invest in Amazon.com. "No," said the big financial journalist, "you should be amazon.com." From the murky slough of my memory, this thought swam up to the surface for the first time in years. The other day my new book was published -- as you may recall, if only because it was the cover story in Maclean's a couple of weeks back. Don't worry; lest you think this is a book plug, I don't think it's possible to plug a book that at the time of writing is unavailable in any Canadian bookstore coast to coast, from Gander to Victoria. Authors have always been interested in inventory, of course. I don't know whether he still does it, but for many years the "novelist" Jeffrey Archer had a habit of wandering into shops and surreptitiously autographing all copies of his books, thus rendering them unreturnable. Less motivated chaps, on discovering the local emporium has not a single copy of the magnum opus, tend just to shrug and move on to writing our next unwanted book. ... According to the CBC, in Canada a "bestseller" sells 5,000 copies. I was amazed to discover that we've already sold that many just on my little website. And a huge number of that 5,000 were shipped out to readers across Canada who'd tried and failed to buy it at Chapters-Indigo and, like Shelley Ide of Port Moody, B.C., wrote to say that "I will never set foot in a Chapters again." If Heather Reisman carries on boycotting me, I should be able to retire to Tahiti within the year. |
| Posted by:mrp |
| #2 I don't know if this applies to Steyn's book, but most audio books are not performed by the author. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2006-11-02 20:56 |
| #1 You know i am going to buy the auido to this. I don't usually buy an audio book but I like to listen to Steyn. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2006-11-02 19:11 |