47 Comments

Peg C.:

I had basically the same experiences with B&N and Borders when Steyn’s America Alone came out. In fact, Amazon was out of stock and I got it from the Conservative Book Club online and joined them at the same time. Since then I have bought plenty of hardbacks but the only one I bought in a store was Vince Flynn’s (life will end if I don’t get those THE DAY they come out). Their loss…

Jan 19, 2008 - 8:35 am Jeffersonian:

And book sellers grind their teeth that Jeff Bezos is eating thier lunch.

Jan 19, 2008 - 8:50 am Vercingetorix:

Tattered Covers, a big private book seller in Denver, and the B & N in at least two locations here don’t stock it either.

Jan 19, 2008 - 8:55 am RJGatorEsq.:

Books-a-Million in Kennesaw, Georgia: Not a copy in sight. A helpful clerk looked all over for a copy for me. He patiently explained, “Sometimes people hide books like this one or Coulter’s” (to be fair to B-a-M, he did not say Books-a-Million employees hid the books; I inferred it, but he may have meant customers hid them).

Mark Steyn’s book was in a stack on the floor. Covered with about 10 copies of another book.
_________________

Jan 19, 2008 - 9:01 am Gabriel:

I tried finding the Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming at a B&N, and found only one copy within 100 miles of my home in Orange County, CA. Steyn’s book was no where to be found either, same for Jonah’s latest. Yet Kieth Olbermans lastest screed had a pile of books center stage when you walked into my local B&N (probably 50 copies) yet his sales rank on Amazon is 211. Go figure.

Jan 19, 2008 - 9:10 am Alex Bensky:

I have been to two Border’s in the Detroit area this past week–Southfield and downtown Birmingham. Southfield had it on the shelves and Birmingham had it displayed on the new books table, face up, as well as having it on the shelf.

Jan 19, 2008 - 9:14 am HeatherRadish:

The B&N here (Glendale WI, suburb of Milwaukee) didn’t have it in stock and had no copies ordered. They didn’t even offer to order it for me, they just said, “Sorry!”

The Borders a couple miles up the road had a stack of them on the “new and noteworthy” table as you walk in. Guess where I’m going first to look for new books from now on?

Now that it’s on the NY Times Bestseller list, it will be interesting to see if B&N stocks it and puts it in that section at the advertised bestseller discount; I look forward to telling them I’d have purchased a copy at full price if they’d made it available instead of shunting me off to the competition.

Jan 19, 2008 - 9:19 am Terry:

It’s the same news here in Schenectady NY. I’ve gone to five different B&N bookstores including the ones at Crossgates, Colonie Center and near Mohawk.

Same drill and EXACTLY the same spiele. I relaize that it’s what they’re trained to say, but it does get funny hearing the same phrase everywhere on the same day.

Jan 19, 2008 - 9:33 am John Ettorre:

Gee, what a mystery. You’re of course free to spin conspiracy theories to explain all this. But did you ever think of the more obvious possibilities such as these: that a book with such a stupid title, written by an “author” without much name recognition among the great mass of serious readers isn’t real high on the list for booksellers to think about when it comes time to ordering books that will move off the shelves.

Jan 19, 2008 - 9:56 am Bubba McCarroll:

I’m a fairly dumb old Tennessee hillbilly, but I’d have to be a tad more naive than I am to believe this is all merely a shortcoming.

Jan 19, 2008 - 10:07 am Tomahawk:

I would think that Barnes and Noble stockholders should be interested in these lost sales.

Jan 19, 2008 - 10:22 am MikeTheLibrarian:

When I tried to buy Huckabee’s diet book from B&N, I was informed twice that it was “out of print and unavailable”. I went to Borders, bought it, brought it back to B&N, showed it to them, along with a printout of its publication status and told them to learn how to use their computers properly.

Jan 19, 2008 - 10:35 am David Warner:

“But did you ever think of the more obvious possibilities such as these: that a book with such a stupid title, written by an “author” without much name recognition among the great mass of serious readers isn’t real high on the list for booksellers to think about when it comes time to ordering books that will move off the shelves.”

Nice scare quotes around the word author, there.

“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

- attributed to Schopenhauer

Mr. Ettore is somewhere between ridicule and violent opposition at the moment, evidently.

Jan 19, 2008 - 10:43 am Anns Fuse Box:

Actually, the book also looks like it is selling out.

I went the day of release to the B&N at The Grove in Los Angeles (upscale west-LA mall) and they had 3 copies shelved spine-out in the current events section.

But looking around the web yesterday and today, Amazon now lists it as “In stock January 28” and the B&N website is listing it with a 1-2 week delivery delay.

That suggests the book is actually flying off the shelves far beyond the expectations of even Amazon to order enough copies.

Jan 19, 2008 - 10:43 am Bubba McCarroll:

John Ettorre :
Gee, what a mystery. You’re of course free to spin conspiracy theories to explain all this. But did you ever think of the more obvious possibilities such as these: that a book with such a stupid title, written by an “author” without much name recognition among the great mass of serious readers isn’t real high on the list for booksellers to think about when it comes time to ordering books that will move off the shelves.

Jan 19, 2008 09:56 AM

Then why, pray tell, is it number 1 on Amazon? I would think that indicates significant interest and a hell of a lot of sales.

The title seems very apt to me, and obviously to a lot of other people as well. Maybe it’s “stupid as stupid does.” You know, that liberal problem.

Jan 19, 2008 - 10:47 am JPL17:

Ettorre — So your explanation for why B&N ignores the #1 book on Amazon is that it prefers “ordering books that will move off the shelves”??? Your argument refutes itself.

Jan 19, 2008 - 10:49 am red:

without much name recognition among the great mass of serious readers …

Well I guess that’s the point isn’t it? Conservatives are not considered ’serious readers’ by the effete, elitist liberals.

Get a clue Winifred, (as Ann Coulter has documented) conservative authors frequently hit the best seller lists, while your most respected and polically powerful authors hit the big salesbin in the sky. Perhaps their mothers read their books, few others. Its conservatives who read, its liberals who gain their political knowledge from Jon Stewart, KOZ, comic books, and Katy Couric.

Good thing that you liberals have the mainstream media and bookstore staff (college graduates who are bitter about big college debts and no real job for their degree in Art History) running interference for them.

BTW, what serious reading have you done today?

Jan 19, 2008 - 10:59 am Allan Pratt:

My local B&N, in Chandler AZ, did have one copy on the shelf. Which I bought.

Jan 19, 2008 - 11:18 am Ennis:

There is no mystery about this.

Follow the money….

Leonard Riggio is a big contributor to the Democratic party. He also owns Barnes and Noble.

Jan 19, 2008 - 11:30 am Sarah:

Big box retail bookstores seem particularly inept at finding books they haven’t decided to go out of their way to stock. And if you talk to anyone below guru status at the stores themselves, they seem incapable of finding anything out. When I worked as a temp in customer service for a publisher, and tried picking up copies of books that I knew (because I had full access to the catalog at work) to be in print, and could even give them the phone number and operating hours for the correct call center for the bookstore to order the book in question, I was told things were out of print, only available on a special order (takes 8 weeks, even though the distribution center that stocks that book happens to be where the call center is — five miles from the book store in question,) and so forth. Blew my mind.

Anyway, the moral is: order online. The big box system is broken for anything harder than finding Anne Rice and JK Rowling.

BTW, I’m absolutely certain that customers hide/move things; I’ve seen people do it. Admittedly, I tend to be the kind of customer who brings stacks of mis-sorted books to the front counter, because I’m insulted when Soviet history ends out in the Russian language section, and romance in the science fiction. The Soviet one I could see being an employee error, but I think the bodice ripper was self-evidently not a Star Trek TNG novel. Especially given the shortage of pink books in the scifi/fantasy shelving region. Anyway, erroneous customer re-stocking is common in every retail environment I’ve ever been in, even before factoring in any bias or distaste for the subject materials.

I’d be curious to see what the “upcoming and recent books” lists at these B&Ns say. Usually they’re pretty good about flagging new stuff on both sides (I think they’re generated at the corporate level.)

Jan 19, 2008 - 11:38 am Raoul Ortega:

These episodes, and reactions like Mr. Ettorre’s, will make a great new chapter in the second edition, or as part of a follow-on book.

Jan 19, 2008 - 11:46 am Classical Values:

noose that’s fit to print?

I’m getting tired of what can only be called noose hysteria. I think reactions to images nooses are leading people to lose all sense of perspective, and allow themselves to be manipulated by what is, after all, only an image….

Jan 19, 2008 - 11:51 am dick:

What I find interesting is that on the same page where you are told a new book has a 1-2 week wait, you can bui used books starting at $122.98 - the new one is $17.60. I guess that means people are really interested in the book.

My local B&N (Queens, NYC) does not have it either.

Jan 19, 2008 - 12:02 pm me:

I work at the Barnes and Noble at 82nd and Broadway and we’ve had it in stock for a week or so. It is displayed with all the normal new non-fiction hardcovers. It is selling quite well.

Jan 19, 2008 - 12:03 pm Bert Gibson:

Why does anybody in 2008 care whether or not a private “bricks and mortar” store fails to carry a book that’s #1 on Amazon.com? If you know it’s sold by Amazon and they have it in-stock, go there and buy it along everything else from now on. Put the Big Box store or the snobby little book stores out of business. They’re ASKING for it! Show them how “the marketplace” works.

Jan 19, 2008 - 12:05 pm Dave:

I really have a hard time believing conspiracy theories. I took a look at the bn.com web site. Liberal Facism is listed as #9 on their top 100 list. So no problem obtaining it from their web site.

Basic rule of government is to always look for incompetence before you look for conspiracy. I think the same applies here. A more likely explanation of shortages is that (a) some customers hide the book, and (b) the clerks don’t have a clue what’s in the store, regardless of politics.

Jan 19, 2008 - 12:19 pm GeoffB:

I think it’s not so much conspiracy as cluelessness in play. Even if liberals in the book trade want to get conservatives’ money, their caricature of what conservatives are all about prevents them from knowing what to stock to fit our tastes.

Here in the South Bay, I’ve only seen one copy of “Liberal Fascism.” But every place has at least a handful of Buckley’s “Cancel you own goddam subscription” and more than that of Glen Beck’s “An Inconvenient Book.” It’s not like they don’t stock conservative books.

But Jonah Goldberg is neither an established bestselling conservative, nor a talk radio host. Which means he’s not on the radar screen for liberal booksellers.

Liberal clerks and customers may try to hide conservative books. And conservatives, in turn, should “accidentally” leave them on the “Books of Interest” table or turn them to face outwards. But when it comes to what is stocked, I think this is less about “censorship” than a failure to understand the market.

Jan 19, 2008 - 12:20 pm Ken:

Books A Million in Lakeland, FL same drill as others have noted - tons of issue-related and politics-related books from authors of many stripes, but no Jonah.

If not for the internet and Amazon this might be a little scary as companies such BandN attempt to control what is available for consumption. Instead it’s rather comical watching the old gatekeepers thrash in their old ways, while the new medium speeds their demise.

Jan 19, 2008 - 12:52 pm s1c:

I stopped by the Borders store in Farmington, CT yesterday. No copies anywhere, so I decided to use the search computer at the help desk to look for the book. The answer, “book not yet published”. I guess that answers why the book is in stock!

Jan 19, 2008 - 1:12 pm Koba:

The Borders in San Rafael, CA, has it. The nearby B&N in Corte Madera, CA, does not. Incidentally, I believe the founders of B&N live within 5 miles of the Corte Madera store.

Jan 19, 2008 - 2:05 pm Lew Moore:

Same drill at all B&N stores in Birmingham, AL and Nashville, TN. One clerk in a Birmingham store said “Wow…it must be popular…the first run has sold out”.

Jan 19, 2008 - 2:32 pm John P. Normanson:

B&N in Niskayuna, Albany, and Clifton Park have the book prominently displayed.

No one at those B&N outlets had ever heard of Roger Kimball, though.

Jan 19, 2008 - 2:34 pm Orson:

It is very tough to find non-Leftist books at bookstores these days.

I also live in the Denver area and I’ve given up on Tattered Cover bookstore. Too much neglect of informed dissent. They don’t care about us.

As for finding “Liberal Fascism,” I found it at Borders at Colorado Mills mall two weeks ago. (And I hate Borders for censoring “Free Inquiry” which displayed the cartoon Jihad in its cover when the movie “United 93″ came out.)

Jan 19, 2008 - 2:44 pm Baxter Greene:

I believe a lot of the problems with what books are given more prominent placement is tied to the management of that individual store.
I got so fed up with it at the Borders in Greensboro,NC. that I would go to the current events shelf in the back of the store and carry copies of conservative authors,UN corruption, Pro-Military yada,yada,yada…up to the front and place them there myself.
I have shopped at this store for years and always got great service when ordering or looking for books and CD’s so I did not complain.
Then I ended up going to B&N because of their discount card that
saved me a pretty good sum of money.
About 6-8 months later I went back
to Borders for a hard to find CD and
when I went in,there was an even display of liberal and conservative
literature displayed front and center.They even quit displaying those obnoxious “Bush Bashing”
calenders at the registers.I bought
the CD and asked to talk to the Manager to compliment them on their
equality and found out quickly that
they were under new management.
The B&N also was equal in their
representation of liberal and conservative literature.This is where I bought Liberal Facism.
Now I am not discounting the fact that so few copies are ordered,and customers hide books(I brought books up front,but I never hid or covered
others up),and there are way to many
instances of conservative literature being “Black listed”. I simply feel
that the majority of staffs in these
book stores are probably liberal and
take the “Hollywood”route of suppressing free speech any chance they get.

Jan 19, 2008 - 3:18 pm Former Belgian:

I found one (1), fairly well-hidden, copy last week at a Border’s in suburban Chicagoland, priced $30 including sales tax, while I could order it for $18 from Amazon, including free 2-day shipping (I am an Amazon Prime member).

So I sampled a few random pages, decided the book was going to be a good read if nothing else, and ordered it at Amazon. I would have ordered the eBook at Mobopocket.com, but Mrs. Former Belgian doesn’t “do” ebooks and I would like her to read it as well.

For people who know what they are looking for and can deal with a 2-day delay, brick-and-mortar bookstores are starting to become pointless.

BTW, at the same Borders, a clerk once saw me reading Thomas Sowell’s “Black rednecks and white liberals” and demonstratively made faces and rolled her eyes at me. I then equally demonstratively walked to the register and bought it.

Jan 19, 2008 - 3:23 pm Peter:

Manchester NH Barnes and Noble - They had to get it out of the back room.

Quote “We haven’t unpacked them yet.”

Jan 19, 2008 - 4:54 pm Terry:

In response to Bert Gibson,

It’s not that simple. There is a large (and especially elderly section of the population that doesn’t trust or doesn’t know about the internet.

Think about it: many book sales are made by people who are browsing or hanging out at the local bookstores and buying them on a whim. Any unavailability of a particular book (especially during its initial release “buzz” period) will result in a drastic suppression of its sales. Any bookseller’s chain understands this paradigm which is why procuring timely orders is such a big deal.

And for those people who don’t know how or don’t trust internet purchases, the bookstore is the only viable method of exposure to these books. My mother is one such person (in spite of my efforts). In fact, I’m reasonably certain that everyone here knows someone of that nature.

If the bookstores don’t carry them (for whatever reason) this big bookreading customer base will either give up on getting copies or will have never have known of the existence of such a book in the first place.

In short, the idea that “it doesn’t matter” is simply a false assumption.

Jan 19, 2008 - 6:48 pm Terry:

“John P. Normanson :
B&N in Niskayuna, Albany, and Clifton Park have the book prominently displayed.

No one at those B&N outlets had ever heard of Roger Kimball, though.”

YOU-ARE-LYING

John whoever-you-are, I grew up and lived here. First, read my post earlier, in which I stated SPECIFICALLY that the B&N stores that I checked did NOT carry Mr. Goldberg’s book, let alone DISPLAYED them.

The one you’re talking about in “Albany” is the one in Colonie Center, recently rebuilt over the last year; beatiful phasod and interior architecture based on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Art Deco design. A pair of vendors sell sunglasses and cell-phone pouches in two “cart kiosks” on the second floor in front of the elevator (male and female, late-teens, early twenties, foreign and Indian features).

*The B&N in Colonie SPECIFICALLY told me they didn’t stock it nor was it on order when I asked.

The B&N you’re alluding to in “Niskayuna” (it’s in Schenectady and I WENT to Niskayuna High School on Balltown)is in Mohawk Commons (people who’ve lived here sometimes still call it “Mohawk Mall”). It sits next to PetSmart and is opposite the building with Supercuts.

*They do NOT carry it. And I wasn’t going to order it from them because I’m leaving for Whitney Point on Sunday.

There is no B&N in Clifton Park. There is, FYI, a Borders store there and when I checked [today], the guy claimed that Liberal Fascism hadn’t been published yet [Oooookay].

YOU-ARE-LYING, or you’re making this up (which is the same thing).

Anybody who wants to verify this can call B&N themselves:

Schenectady/Niskayuna @ Mohawk Commons: Phone# 518-377-0349

Albany @ Crossgates Mall: Phone# 518-459-8183

Good Night John

Jan 19, 2008 - 7:37 pm Terry:

That was Colonie Center in Albany, not Crossgates (which is also in Albany). They’re so close to each other when you’re using I-87.

“s1c :
I stopped by the Borders store in Farmington, CT yesterday. No copies anywhere, so I decided to use the search computer at the help desk to look for the book. The answer, “book not yet published”. I guess that answers why the book is in stock!”

Yes, s1c, exactly the same story on my end.

Jan 19, 2008 - 7:46 pm Terry:

“Dave :
I really have a hard time believing conspiracy theories.”

Nobody has to make “conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are rationalizations of cause and effect that either ignore occam’s razor and/or use unsubstantiated assumptions and events (often disguised as “conventional wisdom”) to “connect dots” that would otherwise be dissociated.

What is happening here is that everyone is verifying the FACTS, NOT “the truth”. For example, what book stores are carrying Mr. Goldberg’s books and what affect it will have on sales. The interpretation is up to you, as the author of the original post pointed out.

As for “John P. Normanson”, I don’t like being deceived about something I just witnessed this past week at a Bookstore that I drove by every day and visited twice this week alone.

Jan 19, 2008 - 9:01 pm celebrim:

“Gee, what a mystery. You’re of course free to spin conspiracy theories to explain all this. But did you ever think of the more obvious possibilities such as these: that a book with such a stupid title, written by an “author” without much name recognition among the great mass of serious readers isn’t real high on the list for booksellers to think about when it comes time to ordering books that will move off the shelves.”

Nice. The conspiracy explains itself with an argument that refutes itself. Simply, my theory is that the purchasing agent(s) for B&N thinks like Mr. Ettore (if indeed Mr. Ettore isn’t the purchasing agent), and continues to think like him even when reality smacks him in the face. No elaborate theory is necessary.

Jan 19, 2008 - 10:10 pm David Olney:

Being a frugal sort I use the library for my first pass at a book. As of of yesterday, the San Mateo County Library System had zero copies at any of its branches.

Jan 20, 2008 - 7:01 am Joe Y:

Interesting…I’m going to the Westport (CT) B&N in an hour or so (about 2:30) and we’ll see if the situation’s improved.

Jan 20, 2008 - 10:29 am 1charlie2:

As a resident of Ballston Lake (in the town of Clifton Park), I’ll second Terry’s comments on the precise location of B&N (and Borders) in the capital district. We have no B&N here, only the cowardly Borders which I haven’t shopped at since the Mohammed cartoons issue was pulled.

So I have to drive to Colonie Center to get my brick & mortar fix at B&N. Or I have to drive about 20 miles north to Wilton (which no one would confuse with Clifton Park).

I’d check them Tuesday on my way home from work, but I’m flying out to Atlanta on business.

Jan 20, 2008 - 5:26 pm John P. Normanson:

Sorry. You are correct about both the location of Barnes & Noble in Wilton, not Clifton Park. I had been in Clifton Park on business Friday morning and Wilton Friday afternoon. I grabbed a coffee in the Borders in Clifton Park. They do not have the book.

But the Wilton store did. Same with Colonie and Niskayuna (some call it Schenectady, others Niskayuna). I found a copy of the book in both Colonie and Niskayuna today as well. I double-checked.

So my apologies on the Wilton v. Clifton Park gaffe. That’s my mistake.

But the B&N locations have Goldberg’s book.

And none of them, even Colonie and Niskayuna today, had ever heard of Roger Kimball. Ask them yourself, if you wish.

I found the staffs in all three stores, especially Colonie and Niskayuna today, to be very nice and professional. Young and not very well read, mind you, but very nice.

Sorry again about the Wilton v. Clifton Park error. That’s my fault. As for your attitudes, I am not sure how to respond. I could call it passionate or upset derived from my miscue, for which I again apologize, but your bitterness, if you will, seems somehow derived from an anger at not having the facts match your stated theories.

Just because we wish to see a conspiracy does not make it so.

Again, sorry about the Wilton v. Clifton Park gaffe. That’s my fault.

Jan 20, 2008 - 6:55 pm DC in OC:

Seattle’s banned book

Roger Kimball went searching for what seems to be Liberal’s most hated book, Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, and has come up, suspiciously enough, empty in a few stops throughout Connecticut. I’ve conducted my own brief look at two Seattle area…

Jan 23, 2008 - 6:47 pm Dominique R. Poirier:

Hello,
I’m a newcomer on your blog. I found it this morning cited on neveryetmelted.com, another blog — my favorite, actually.

Well, I guess I have a still better story belonging to this genre, but it happened in France, where I live at this time.

On a last September evening I went to the biggest bookstore one can find around here, located in the city nearby (Troyes, in Champagne-Ardennes; a hundred of miles from Paris). It’s kind of French equivalent to Border’s and it’s a store big enough to afford having a small Books-in-English-Language department.
I first assumed it was the most likely place where I could find Atlas Shrugged; or order it, at least.
Alas, I wasn’t unable to find it on shelves, in English as in French neither, and so I asked for to a young saleswoman quietly working on her computer behind a counter.

–“Anne Reid,” you say?
–No, no, A-Y-N, and R-A-N-D, I spelled.
–Hmmm… No, I don’t find that name. Do you have a title? Said the girl who visibly assumed I could have been mistaken at some point with foreign orthography.
–Yes. Atlas Shrugged; Atlas, like the giant; then Shrugged: S-H-R-U-two Gs-E-D; I spelled.

I waited for a little while as the obliging girl was busying herself again on her keyboard.

–No, sorry, I don’t find this title. Are you sure of the author’s name and title?
–Oh yes, absolutely. It’s an American best seller since years already and it keeps going steady at a rate of about 500,000 copies a year.

She frowned and turned to her chief who was also working on a computer; an older an equally obliging woman on her 35.

–Does it ring any bell to you: Atlas Shrugged; Ayn Rand; A-Y-N, R-A-N-D?
–Hmm, no; never heard of; while addressing to me rather than to her younger colleague who went back resuming her search for my book.
–Well, I’m going to look for this elsewhere, she said, and if ever this book does exist then I’ll find out.

It didn’t take more than ten seconds before the girl exclaimed, triumphal, with a broad smile:

–That’s it, I got it!

I noticed that she was browsing on Amazon while I was bending to take a look at her computer’s screen.

–But why can’t I find it on my database, she said, then? Oh, it is available in English only; and — we can’t order this book for you, seemingly. We can order nearly all books in English you want; but, sorry, not this one, seemingly.

Still browsing the web while addressing this time to her superior who began to express some curiosity about our ongoing conversation:

–How curious it is, I am even unable to find any critics or else in French about this book!

The kind girl seemed sincerely sorry.

–I’m sorry sir, she finally said as she ended her search, did you try elsewhere in some other bookstores downtown? Maybe they can order it, but…uh…if we can’t then I doubt you’ll be able to order it elsewhere, in my opinion.

–I know; I tried while browsing their online catalogue, already, in vain; I answered.

Jan 24, 2008 - 5:11 am

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