http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/12/waterstones-bookseller-trolling-self-published-author
I can't say I'm very sympathetic to this author. By wandering into Waterstones to leave business cards in a bookstore that clearly was not carrying his material before (see in the article how Waterstones offered to put his book in their ebook store), he was inviting some criticism. I'm not surprised they threw out his cards, especially if they were left around unsolicited.
Trolling him was clearly taking it too far, but to ask for publicity on top of being carried by the chain boggles me. To ask to have his book mentioned on Twitter and Facebook makes me wonder how his interactions with the staff at the physical store actually went. Most people who work in this industry that I know wouldn't go to all the bother of making socks like this to troll the guy's book with bad reviews just because of a few annoying cards left around the store. What did he do to rile them up so much?
Would very much like to hear the other side of the story from the employee(s) at the store who dealt with him directly...
Anyone else have thoughts on this?
I can't say I'm very sympathetic to this author. By wandering into Waterstones to leave business cards in a bookstore that clearly was not carrying his material before (see in the article how Waterstones offered to put his book in their ebook store), he was inviting some criticism. I'm not surprised they threw out his cards, especially if they were left around unsolicited.
Trolling him was clearly taking it too far, but to ask for publicity on top of being carried by the chain boggles me. To ask to have his book mentioned on Twitter and Facebook makes me wonder how his interactions with the staff at the physical store actually went. Most people who work in this industry that I know wouldn't go to all the bother of making socks like this to troll the guy's book with bad reviews just because of a few annoying cards left around the store. What did he do to rile them up so much?
Would very much like to hear the other side of the story from the employee(s) at the store who dealt with him directly...
Anyone else have thoughts on this?