[Shrek] Number Two Looks Great, Where's Number One?

With hockey playoffs starting and a few other things going on, it's been a while since Fiona or I graced these pages. I actually intended to make this post a week or so ago, but the fact I had almost no time to write it allowed the story to play out a little more and make it a little more head scratching than it was originally.

The two of us occasionally make the long and arduous journey (read: five minute drive) down the street to the local Barnes & Noble to, as I like to put it, "visit the books". I love everything about books, and very seldom do we leave without buying at least one. While I generally buy new bestsellers at places like BJ's Wholesale Club or WalMart because of the deep discount, neither really stocks new authors or science fiction so a trip to B&N almost always results in finding something interesting to read.

One thing I've noticed about the B&N in Lincoln Plaza is they don't really seem to have any concept of how to order books. Now I'm sure that because they are a chain most of what they get, both new books and re-orders, is based on what they've sold in the past. But someone needs to explain to me how a store can have a dozen copies of an author's new book and not have a single copy of any of their others. Or worse, have those books be sequels or part of a series and not have a single copy of the original book. And in most cases it's not that they just sold out of that book--there's often no spot where that book would have been to begin with.

I really noticed this the Saturday before Easter when we got to spend some time with a friend from Delaware that was up visiting family for the holiday. After going out to dinner at Joey's Bar & Grille Ra...hmmm, perhaps he doesn't want his name used, so I should change it. Keeping with the Shrek and Fiona theme, I'll call him Puss in Boots because he probably wouldn't like being called Donkey.

So Fiona, myself, and Puss in Boots decided to go out and grab a coffee after dinner, and because of Puss in Boots' love of the foul tasting Starbucks coffee, we headed to B&N as that's what they serve in their in store cafe. While Fiona and Puss in Boots waited for their coffee, I wandered over to the science fiction section where they literally had half a dozen new titles that were sequels or book two in a series on the shelf and not a one had a single copy of book one available. That's too bad for a couple of those authors, because I eventually went to eBay and bought their books used, meaning they made nothing off the sale.

During our conversation in the cafe Puss in Boots mentioned a book by an online friend of his named Larry Correia called Monster Hunter International. So I wandered back into the science fiction section, where I wasn't too shocked to find B&N didn't have a copy. (So I'm sorry to tell Mr. Correia he didn't make a dime off me either as I also bought his book off eBay the same day I bought a couple of those other series).

Flash forward to yesterday, and in Fiona and my weekend journey we ended up back at B&N in Lincoln Plaza, and lo and behold they had some other "book twos" on the new book shelf without a book one around to be found. I wasn't really looking for anything but Fiona found a couple of things, so we made our purchase and left. Later in the evening we decided to go out to dinner so we decided to look in at Joey's Bar and Grille, our favorite haunt and the place we took Puss in Boots when he was here. It was PACKED.

As we're regulars and the hostess is a super sweet nice lady, she was a little upset that she couldn't get us a table. It didn't bother Fiona or I; we figured it would be packed and we didn't have a reservation. And to be honest, I want my favorite restaurant to be busy at 8pm on a Saturday. Because we were picking up our niece at her work we decided not to wait around and instead headed to the Shoppes at Blackstone to kill some time before she was out of work. Of course, we wandered into the B&N there.

Now I wasn't too shocked to see their stock of remaindered hardcovers was a little different, but I was shocked to see that they had many more new books that the B&N in Lincoln Plaza didn't have. In fact, they had two new science fiction books that definitely weren't at the Lincoln Plaza store, and with each of the sequel/book twos they had on the new book shelf they had a copy of the first book (or in a couple of cases the spot where that book would have been on the shelf was obvious so it appears they had one and sold it recently).

The store was so different in their selection that we may make the B&N at Shoppes at Blackstone our "primary" B&N as opposed to the one right up the street from where we live, and obviously I now question the competence of the person running the store in Lincoln Plaza.

But at least Mr. Correia will have more chances for his book to sell--the B&N at Shoppes at Blackstone had five copies available.