Entry tags:

author entitlement, authors, writers are often pompous douches

Why fan -- er, pro authors can't have nice things.
Rob Thurman is an urban fantasy author who desperately wants to get the 6th book in her series on the NY Times bestseller list. According to a wee mousie, the way bestsellers are calculated is by applying a complex and seekrit algorithm to the first week's sales, from Tuesday (when new books, like albums and babies, "drop") to Saturday. So it's very important to rack up sales during that time period if you want to list.

Also according to the mousie, Thurman's been going nuts for the past month, posting in all caps, and topping things off with this post. Thurman berates a reader for buying the book on Monday because said reader is having surgery on Tuesday. The reader apologizes, Thurman says she'll need pictures of the surgery.

Thurman's specialness doesn't end there. Non-USA readers have to buy two copies of the book to get their reward (sneak peek at the 7th books), people who buy online are Ebil! and more CAPSlock.

Her tweets are also... yeah.

Hat tip to the mouse, for ~~stealing~~ borrowing chunks of her post.

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	jupiterpluvius 2010-03-03 10:54 pm UTC (link)
	And saying "no bestseller lists count online purchases" is either total cluelessness or an out-and-out lie. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	breecita 2010-03-03 11:39 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, this is driving me a wee bit nutty. It's not just that she's yelling, she's yelling stuff that isn't even right. Also I'm not 100% sure she is differentiating between online and digital sales. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

bobafeis
2010-03-04 06:53 am UTC (link)

Yeah. I have no clue what this is about, because afaik, no Barnes & Noble store has the ability to sell ebooks. The only exceptions are some very, very rare books where the CD or floppy can be ordered in, or walking customers through buying ebooks from the website. E-book sales on PDAs or nooks are through the website as well. The fact that she's even asking that question (as well as the way she's going about this) makes me think she has only the vaguest of clues about digital books and the interwebz.

And honestly, more authors (especially mid-list genre authors) live and die by their Amazon ranking than by their NYT or USA Today rankings.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	breecita 2010-03-04 01:53 pm UTC (link)
	I'm pretty sure you can't buy ebooks in a B&N unless you're talking about buying a book on the Nook while physically standing inside a B&N. (I'm pretty sure the Nook has wifi access inside most B&Ns.) But still...whose wifi you're using to make the purchase realllly probably doesn't make a difference. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	evilsqueakers 2010-03-05 10:05 am UTC (link)
	Nook has wifi everywhere. I order books online in various places (my mom's home, Walmarts when bored). My nifty toy inspired my mom to buy one, too. Wheee. She loves getting books in text size she can read that's not 50 a pop. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	nightwalker 2010-03-06 10:29 am UTC (link)
	Nope, we can't. Ebooks are, perhaps by definition, website only. I'm thinking she might not entirely understand how they work? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

bobafeis
2010-03-07 11:12 am UTC (link)

I don't think she does, honestly. How would we do it? Call it up in Bookmaster and then somehow transfer it over to the device? Maybe she thinks we're much more high tech than we are....

(I used to work at a store that tested pretty much all the new concepts, and there were always rumors that we'd be getting a way to sell ebooks in the store, but it doesn't look like that one's panned out yet.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	breecita 2010-03-07 03:49 pm UTC (link)
	Oh Bookmaster. I once had a customer ask me if I could use my computer to find out if the last Left Behind book would come out before the rapture. And he wasn't joking. Maybe they've included that functionality in one of the updates since I left. ;) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	researchgrrrl 2010-03-08 06:09 am UTC (link)
	This is either absolutely adorable or unutterably terrifying. I'm rooting for the former because I'm in sort of an affection cheek-pinching mood. :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

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