In San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area, you'll find pop-ups everywhere. Pop-up art galleries, pop-up restaurants, pop-up book clubs. You'll also find community exchanges, part of the sharing movement. One of my favorites is a couple of newspaper dispensers near the local Whole Foods that have been converted into book swaps or little free libraries. Leave a book, take a book. One box is for children's literature, the other for adults. I've found a gem now and then, and have dropped off some donations myself on occasion. A couple of days ago, my friend Jeremy sent me a photo of a box—not sure where it was, but he lives in the East Bay, so maybe there. Guess what was inside? Yup. Part of me is proud and another part is slightly...miffed. Like, seriously, You? You, whoever you are who had a copy of my book, didn't want to keep it? Needed to make room for something different, something better? Seeing my book in a giveaway/discard pile is not the same as discovering someone reading it on the bus (I have yet to experience that fizzy little moment of jelly). It's true, I've cleared out books myself, à la the life-changing magic of tidying up. A lot of books. Books that friends gave me, with the philosophy that they needed to be shared, that those books weren't living their lives, so to speak, gathering dust on my shelves. So, I know it's OK, and even excellent that someone chose to share my book rather than chuck it in a recycling bin. But it's also slightly, mortifyingly disappointing, in the way it is when a friend will say, "Oh, I gave my copy of your book to so-and-so." I always want to say, "Great! Thanks for getting it into the hands of more readers. But how about buy so-and-so a copy of my book instead?" But that would be ungrateful and bitchy. Because that's not the sharing movement 'tude. Every now and then, though, there is someone who is a follower of the support-Olivia-so-she-can-up-her-sales-figures-and-become-a-bestseller-and-make-a-real-living-as-an-author-and-put-food-on-the-table-through-her-creative-writing movement. I get that that is not a movement with legs. I've come to terms with that. Mostly. Not entirely. Clearly, or I wouldn't be writing this, would I?
0 Comments
|
About Olivia
I'm the author of two novels, Year of the Smoke Girl and The Flower Bowl Spell. My stories have been published in anthologies and lit mags. I'm currently working on a chapter book series, a middle-grade novel, and I've posted an award-winning novel, Hearts & Minds, to Wattpad, which is free to read! Archives
December 2020
Categories
All
|