So I’m off for the annual Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Trade Show, in Denver, lugging my passel of books and pens along with me, and this is the moment (is there ever not a moment?) to once again express how impossible would be the job of the independent publisher without the truly astonishing work of the independent publishers’ sales reps.
These people crisscross the country, sometimes over unbelievably wide territories–to hear their stories is like listening to the denizens of some early wagon train, schlepping it across the twenty seven north south mountain ranges of Nevada–selling (cajoling, coaxing, promoting) independent viewpoints, independent ideas, in the form of independent books, to booksellers hanging around their espresso machines all over the country.
They’re the pollinators. You think Amazon is the only place to buy/sell books? Where do you think people learn about these books? The ideas get in the bloodstream, and before you know it, they’re in your blood too, and you’re looking around for words to confirm or deny, or support or complete…and there you are, looking at a book.
So now I’m off to the hive, to listen to the buzzing about what’s out there, and add a little buzz of my own. And in between the buzz, to giggle with Dory Dutton, one of the best in a group of Best with a capital ‘B’ (this means you, John, and Lise, and Terri and Bill, and Steve, and Stephen, and Melissa, and Keith, and JANE, and and and and and and…), because one of the things that science has taught me is that women behave differently when stressed than men do…we don’t go in for that ‘fight or fly’ response, apparently, when stressed we bond with other women and play with children, or with people capable of acting like children without descending to childishness. A real art, that.
Off to do both. Bond and play. See you later.