June 1, 2017
Do you know a bookseller? Great! Now nominate them for this sweet Patterson $$$
by Peter Clark
Attention, booksellers (and their friends)! Do you remember a few years ago when mega-bestselling author James Patterson donated a million dollars to indie bookstores? Or last year when he gave holiday bonuses to these booksellers just for, you know, being booksellers?
Continuing Patterson’s trend of being a swell—and uber-rich—guy, he’s decided to up the ante for bookseller holiday bonuses in 2017. As Judith Rosen reports at Publisher’s Weekly, this year Patterson will give the American Booksellers Association $350,000 to disperse to booksellers in holiday bonuses.
But how, you may ask, can I get my hands on some of this money? All you need to do is get nominated by someone who can answer the question: Why does this bookseller deserve a holiday bonus?
I’ve gone ahead and prepared some sample answers that I would expect would jump someone to the top of the voting committee”s list.
- Beatrice deserves a holiday bonus because of her impressive ability to write staff picks in the voice of Cthulhu, who has nothing to do during his cosmic imprisonment except read galleys.
- Reginald deserves a holiday bonus because of his clever shelving of Rebecca Solnit books behind copies of The Game. He has also been known to put them in front of The Game. In fact, his store might not even sell The Game, and he just sells Solnit.
- Clarence deserves a holiday bonus because he attempted to do the poses in this year’s hot, not-actually-published yoga book, Shevasana Your Face. In the store. On Indie Bookstore Day. Drunk. Thousands of not-actually-published copies were imaginarily sold during this brilliant piece of performance art.
Anyway, you get the picture. Booksellers, nominate your co-workers today for that sweet holiday surprise. You have until October 1, but hurry anyway.
Peter Clark is a former Melville House sales manager.