Love Letters to Booksellers
Does the author-to-bookseller gratitude letter really make it to a bookseller?
One of the things publicity departments at publishing houses ask an author with a soon-to-be-published book to do is write a praising letter to booksellers. Admire them. A little anecdote about your favorite bookstore from childhood, too, because that’s sweet. My childhood only had one independent bookstore, and it’s long gone. One day, I will write a post about The Book Works in Del Mar, California, and how a beautiful bookstore in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country couldn’t survive, but this is a nice post for nice people, so not today.
As an author, you really want booksellers to know and love your work because, well, you know.
I remember being asked to do this by the St. Martin’s publicity people. In fact, I dug through my old emails to find the one I wrote for Every Anxious Wave. This is how it started:
Dear fellow bookseller,
I used to work at BookPeople in Austin. My official job was upstairs in the marketing office helping with the website and events, but last December, BookPeople let me be a bookseller on the sales floor. During the busy holidays, I negotiated across the floor, blue lanyard proudly around my neck, through the swarms of human book-wanters. Human book-wanters are my favorite type of human, and it was with no shortage of joy that I approached customers in the fiction section asking them if they wanted help finding a title, or a recommendation. Those who said yes were shown astonishing level of enthusiasm for the books I wanted them to know and love. I probably overdid it.
(The rest of the letter goes on to describe EAW’s plot and theme and its time travel premise, blah blah, and then I thank booksellers, who are actually saints and magicians and angels walking the earth in human form.)
The publicity department takes these letters seriously. Mine went through a couple of edits before being emailed to fellow booksellers across the country.
I was reminded of this practice when I was looking through the emails at work and saw that the store had gotten a bookseller love letter from an author who had grown up in Portland and had mentioned our store in her letter. How lovely! How dear! The store where I work is a small neighborhood shop that has been on the same street for forty-five years. We get a lot of customers who mention that they were brought to our store as children and, in turn, love bringing their own children in to look for books.
We also get a lot of customers who walk in the door and comment on how great our store smells. (I wear a mask at work and don’t know what exactly they’re smelling, but I believe them.)
![Photo of rose garden on a sunny day](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa46f12c1-f7b8-42ef-9c68-727adead46cc.heic)
I wondered if any booksellers actually got around to reading my letter when Every Anxious Wave was published. Not to shame or mock anyone who might do this, but I didn’t walk into bookstores and say, “Hey! Did you happen to see that email I wrote about how I love booksellers and think we’re goddamn warriors and the hottest shit ever so you’d hand sell my book?” I mean, I wouldn’t fault anyone for doing that, of course. But we all wonder what sort of wings our work grows when it flies out into the world.
So I thought it would be nice if this author, Lola Milholland, whose memoir Group Living and Other Recipes, will be published by Spiegel & Grau in August, knew that her bookseller letter made it to an actual bookseller, i.e. me. A bookseller who then sought out her ARC and is prepared (with knowledge!) to sell her book in a few months. Lola lives in Portland and owns an organic ramen noodle company. She seems like an incredibly nice and thoughtful person (based on her book!) and the kind of author we like to support at our shop. Maybe she’ll find this post and know, so she doesn’t have to come in the store and ask about her letter and maybe feel weird about that.
And I thought it would be nice if, for any authors out there who might be bidden to pen one of these bookseller love letters (easy peasy, because YOU LOVE BOOKSELLERS, right?) by their publicist, were prepared to write this and also get, like, zero response from booksellers, because I’m pretty sure no one hits reply on those things.
Lola: I read your bookseller letter! Thank you!
Currently reading: Group Living and Other Recipes by Lola Milholland
Enjoying your substack, Mo. Pithiness by the pound. Pith > pulp. Lean into the pith. Even more pith. Extra pith. Countrystyle pith. "Mrs. Pith," that's a title for something. Then you can do the sequel "Mr. Pith" ten years later. Like fucking Evan S. Connell. Badass. People don't talk about him as much anymore, right? Dummies.
But I'm also the kind of person who appreciates a hardcover book about wars that aren't WWII, so don't take it from me.
Alright, go promote Mo Rocca's new book that comes out soon. Help a fellow Mo. If you type him into Amazon it gives you: "Showing results for moroccan" and a bunch of froufrou hair products so he seems like he could benefit from an IRL push.
whoaaaa no one ever made me do that!! how fascinating. obviously i shower booksellers with love when i'm in a store but what an interesting idea.
also, in my current WIP a bookstore owner corners an author at a party and she can't figure out how to get out of it while showing the proper deference, lol