My name is Erica Eisdorfer and I’ve been a bookseller at the Bull’s Head Bookshop in Chapel Hill, NC for 30 years. I’m also the author of a novel, out from Putnam in August, called The Wet Nurse’s Tale.
I’ve attended my share of SIBAs and BEAs and also ABAs (which proves that I’ve been in the business for a long time, that I still call it the ABA, I mean) but always as a bookseller. This year I went as an author. The contrast was interesting. Here’s my take on two sides of SIBA.
As bookseller Erica, the view of SIBA is larger than as an author, I would say. There are so many aspects of the industry to think about: returns and electronic books and censorship and whether the books are good this season and whether you’ve missed anything important. And there’s sort of a community feeling floating around. You’re there with all these like-minded people who more than likely got into the business because of some bookish siren-song and you walk around looking at the publishers’ wares and you know that you have problems and joys in common. You look at other nametags and think oh, I’ve heard of that store, that’s a big store and you feel excited to see the face of the store and sort of inspired to think about what that store has been able to do–the creative ideas its had–to make it.
As author, the view of SIBA is smaller, like looking through the wrong end of the telescope, but still pretty compelling. You’re thinking about your one book and you’re thinking about how to make yourself seem charming and accessible and you’re feeling that standard oh-if-I-could-only-get-them-to-read-it-then-I-know-they-would-love-it feeling. What’s for sure is that any author who didn’t quite understand the value of the independent store before they went to SIBA, would get their eyes opened right quick to the total understanding of: oh I see! THESE are the important people, these booksellers who, if you can make them read your book, will talk it up and hand sell it and move it right along. I mean, it seems to me, that if you’re an author who didn’t understand that concept before, that when you sit and sign books for booksellers from Sparta and Galax and Gwinnett County and Wilmington, well then you’d get it.
