Game Plans and Other Progress

[rolanni]

kinzel and I have brainstormed a bridge that will get us handily across that ravine and connect up with the next bit of known story, happily using a character who had promised to be on their way, but who I didn't realize could have actually by now arrived. So, ist goot and I proceed toward the finish while kinzel deals with the first 94,212 words and the excitement thereto. This will hopefully net us a completed manuscript in reasonable shape on or very near to March 31, which ist also goot, as kinzel's dental adventure begins in mid-April.

On the signing-and-mailing books front, we've got 131 orders yet to fill. Or -- we've filled the pre-orders through the letter Q (pause while Scrabble jumps in my lap to perform Supervisory Head-butts and other morale building exercises) -- remembering that this year's list was delivered from Meisha Merlin in alphabetical order, rather than the order-received order of years past.

B&N brick-and-mortars remain adamant in their belief that Crystal Soldier is a graphic novel, thus most B&Ns are not stocking it (this information gained through a field study performed by members of the Friends of Liad). They will -- according to reports, grudgingly -- special-order a single copy of the book if a customer insists. The few B&Ns who have ordered in a copy or two of Crystal Soldier are stocking it in the graphic novel section.

Several indie SF/F bookstores are carrying Crystal Soldier: Uncle Hugo's; Borderlands; Mysterious Galaxy; Pandemonium Books; Dreamhaven. All of these stores do mail order.

Comments

B&N

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Commiserations, this is certainly bizarre. The local B&N has several copies of Balance of Trade in stock, properly shelved in the SF section, and that seems to have a similar listing in their database, also listing Donato Giancola (Illustrator) in the author credits.

Re: B&N

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Bizarre. Also frustrating. We spent a half-hour or so at our local B&N, talking to the nice man who takes care of the SF section, who knows us and who kindly makes sure that our books are always in. Except not Crystal Soldier, because -- it's listed in the in-store database as a graphic novel and somebody else takes care of that section.

He could back-track the graphic novel listing through the in-house database to the Ingram database. At this point, though, the genie's loose and there's no getting it back into the bottle. Particularly sad, as it is the first book of a matched set, so even if they get it right for Dragon, nobody'll be able to find Soldier.

*Headdesk*

[jslove.livejournal.com]

I went looking yesterday.

The B&Ns in eastern Massachusetts all do not stock Crystal Soldier, and the guy at the one I was at coolly informed me that it was from some two-bit, insignificant publisher (Meisha Merlin), and they didn't bother with that kind of graphic novel. Verrry helpful. I was already negatively impressed by their gate-keeping the query terminals; you can't look up anything yourself.

So I walked to the nearby Borders. This may be more interesting. The self-service terminals show the book correctly, but the Framingham store and the nearby stores all show no stock. So I went to the desk and asked. Although the catalog I used correctly shows that it had a release date of 2/2005, with the correct authors and category, the version of Books-in-Print that they could query showed a publish date of 2/2004. The people there couldn't explain it, but they said the database appeared to be screwed up. I could speculate that it wasn't ordered because they didn't think it was new. Did you know about this problem?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

it was from some two-bit, insignificant publisher (Meisha Merlin), and they didn't bother with that kind of graphic novel.

Wow. What a sweetie.

the version of Books-in-Print that they could query showed a publish date of 2/2004. The people there couldn't explain it, but they said the database appeared to be screwed up. I could speculate that it wasn't ordered because they didn't think it was new. Did you know about this problem?

Nope, that's a Whole New Problem, and I will let the publisher know -- thank you!

This poor book is Doomed....

[jslove.livejournal.com]

Even B&N said they could special-order the book for me. I had my doubts that they would be able to process the order, but they are just doubts. I got the brush-off when I asked when it would be in.

At Borders, I asked when it would be in, and they told me that, as far as they could tell, there was no order outstanding, and that until/unless that changed, never. But they could special-order it, too.

I told them that, if I were going to mail-order the book, I would order it from Larry Smith Books and get a signed copy. And Larry should be back to Columbus from Lunacon tonight or tomorrow, so that is what I intend to do.

Severely delayed is not Doomed. I hope.

Ingram is the problem

[(Anonymous)]

They are who you need to talk to Kinzel ranted about these problems and i sent a complaint to Powell.com and forwarded their replay to SRM@korval.com they eaid that Ingram has it mislisted if you can fix that entry all of the others should cascade into place.

I hope this gets fixed you deserve more attention then you are getting......

Sorry for the Annon my livejournal went bye bye

thecherub

Re: Ingram is the problem

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Yes -- thank you. We got your email and forwarded it to the publisher. At this point, fixes have to come from higher up on the food chain than Mere Authors. Happily, helpful folks like you are giving us plenty of facts to send on.