Monday, September 16, 2013

Be a bookseller for a day (or an hour)

As part of the festivities for Small Business Saturday, a.k.a. the Saturday after Thanksgiving (and Black Friday), author Sherman Alexie is spearheading a campaign in which authors can help support their local bookstores on November 30.

The gist is for PAL authors to spend an hour, a short shift, or a day, hand-selling books at their favorite indie — attracting attention from all those holiday shoppers, supporting a local business, and getting happy attention for their own titles. In Sherman's words:
Here's the plan: We book nerds will become booksellers. We will make recommendations. We will practice nepotism and urge readers to buy multiple copies of our friends' books. Maybe you'll sign and sell books of your own in the process. I think the collective results could be mind-boggling (maybe even world-changing).
SCBWI is all for boggling minds and supporting Indies First, so ask your nearest indie bookseller today if they're interested in volunteers for that busy shopping day. Be patient with them if they're still figuring out how to juggle volunteers and make it work for them, or even if it won't work for their situations. Either way, be sure to stop by one of those bookstores as a book-nerd shopper that Saturday, as well as an author and potential bookseller!

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