THE DANGER OF EXPECTING PEOPLE IN BOOKSTORES TO DO THEIR JOB

I have meetings this afternoon and I’ll miss them all if I start ranting now. I think that maybe the title gives it away.

There are bookstores I deal with all the time and it is a pleasure to work with them. I’m friends with them now.  Then there are the ones who have no initiative, won’t respond to emails and messages left for them, will claim to not have my number even though it’s in my email signature and ruin a promoted event because they don’t have the brains to do the job they are paid for.

I really despair at the state of bookstores. I had the manager of WHSmith – quite local to me – actually phone the other week to tell me he was ‘non-plussed’ that I’d told his regional manager I was supplying Sheila Quigley’s books directly to them! Imagine my surprise – I hadn’t realised I’d been running Arrow rather than Tonto. Talk about surreal. I’m fairly certain I’ve never published Sheila’s books in the past. If I had, he’d be talking to my secretary and I’d be off playing golf with Ant and Dec. It was one of the maddest conversations I’ve ever had – needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be supplying any further Sheila Quigley titles to them. But – if you fancy winding them up, espesh in the north east and in a big shopping centre in Gateshead – please feel free to ask if they are going to be stocking the new Sheila Quigley novel.