MR. SUPERSTAR COMES TO THE STORE TO SIGN HIS CRAPPY BOOKS

I've had a lot to say... I just haven't been saying it! Shame on me! I promise to do better.

So yesterday a big-time (or semi- big-time) adult author came into the kids' dept. at the bookstore to sign copies of his book that he wrote for kids. I was working at the information desk at the time. He had with him his entourage of publishing folks. He whipped out his sharpie and started immediately signing (NO eye contact directed at me or any other bookseller). He signed like a madman, as if an axe murderer were going to chop him to bits if he didn't finish signing the stack of books within a 4 min. period. The publishing ladies did not make eye contact either. No one introduced themselves. I honestly found the whole display to be tasteless and wished nothing more than to trip the semi-famous author down a flight of stairs.

One of the publishing ladies held up one of his crapily (I don't know how to spell that because it's not a real word) signed books and said, "Oh, I SWEAR I bought this at another store yesterday!" As if she couldn't have bought one of the hundred he was now signing... um... And all I thought to myself was that there was no way we were going to sign all of the copies that the publisher INSISTED we order because kids don't know who this author is and certainly dodn't care about his badly done signature!

So then Mr. Big-Shot with the expensive scarf begins talking about how he was in Italy and how they rolled out the red carpet for him and held some parade in his honor or some such (I was trying extremely hard not to listen and to read a PW article instead). Ugh! Then I wanted to trip him some more.

Okay, so the thing is this: if you want a bookseller to help you sell your books 1) smile at them 2) introduce yourself while signing and 3) don't act like an *ss