It also protects mom and pop shops from being totally screwed by the buying power of the chains. Everyone gets to put it on the shelves the same day. It's all egalitarian.

B&N had a deal with my publisher to promote Vampire People early, but they all got shipped at the same time. There's obviously no embargo on my rinky dink book, and sellers can shelve them whenever it's convenient for them.

We should have received our boxes of books today, I think. We've got about 3000 reservations, and will probably have an additional few hundred copies for those who didn't bother doing holds. Of course, there are people who put the book on hold at multiple locations, unsure of where they would end up getting it, so we're only hanging onto the reserved copies until Monday night, then they're available as well. Apparently, for HBP, we ended up with 150 boxes of books that we shipped back to the publisher (that's 1500 copies).

I remember stocking a new Waldenbooks, a long time ago. Minimal backroom. Any extra paperback copies beyond a certain number were shredded. It felt like sacrilege. And a waste. Why did HQ send so much?

IOQ, I forget something: when you have a letter with a legend above the address like "via e-mail", "via fedex", "via facsimile"-- what do you say for regular post? "via mail" sounds wrong.

bon, we use "via U.S. mail" for that - sounds less stupid than "via mail". Marginally.

I remember stocking a new Waldenbooks, a long time ago. Minimal backroom. Any extra paperback copies beyond a certain number were shredded. It felt like sacrilege. And a waste. Why did HQ send so much?

I helped to close down the first Waldenbooks I worked at--we had to strip every last massmarket paperback we had in stock, literally thousands of them. At least we finally got permission to send the stripped books to the recycling center and not just trash them. That was painful.

Question for HR types:

I'm a federal employee. I was hired under a job description that required a training for X time in Y place. Now, I'm being told I must attend a course for 2.5(X) in Y, Z, and Q places. Any idea if I have any recourse?

My union is checking but I worship at the altar of the hivemind.

(I wrote about this in more detail in my LJ but I have access to a bigger hive here.)

Any extra paperback copies beyond a certain number were shredded.

Ouch! There are charitable entities who would love those books (juvie hall I visit being one).

I used to know a place where you could buy coverless books for a dollar. I never enquired as to just how they'd come by them, but I figured a dumpster and resourcefulness were involved. This was a long time ago, when I was a penniless college ungraduate.

Tiny just used "office" as a verb again. I may have to get all prescriptivist on his ass.

We weren't even allowed to take them home after ripping the covers off. They were firm on that. I suspect it is sort of like the problems my dad ran into trying to donate excessed computer equipment from the university. The redtape involved was insane. There were tax consequences and liability this and that and blah blah blah. It was cheaper for the univerity to store umpteen years of equipment in some forgotten closet than to give it away. Crazy.