Okay, I am walking along Broadway in New York City. I’m walking pretty quickly. I arrive at my local Barnes & Noble on the corner of Sixty-Seventh Street. I see three copies of my novel Along Came a Spider in the window. This is good stuff.
I’ve been pretty much waiting for this to happen since I first came to live in New York in the 1970s. It’s now January of 1993.
I go inside the bookstore. I’m hyperventilating a little. I want to make this moment last.
It’s a Sunday. I’ve just seen that Along Came a Spider is number 6 on the New York Times bestseller list. I don’t think that could be a mistake, but I’m a little afraid it might be.
I walk toward the fiction section and I can already see the cover for Along Came a Spider. It features big type and an illustration of a spider hanging over a suburban-looking house.
Now here’s what some writers do. We count the number of copies of our book in stock at the local bookstore.
I know there were twelve copies of Along Came a Spider here a few days ago. Now there are six copies.
So maybe the New York Times bestseller list is accurate. I’m feeling a little dizzy. I don’t know how to handle this. I’m starting to get hopeful—and hope is not a strategy.
While I’m heading toward Along Came a Spider, a woman picks up a copy.
I stop walking.
Now, here’s another thing that happens with some writers: If we see you pick up a copy of one of our books at the store, we watch you. If you buy the book, I swear, it makes our whole day. But if you put the book down, reject us, as it were, it breaks our hearts. Seriously. I think it hurts our souls.
So I’m watching this woman, practicing spy craft the way I’ve read about it in John le Carré mysteries.
She reads the flap copy, then she reads the author blurbs on the back cover. Then she puts Along Came a Spider under her arm.
I’m trying to be cool about this, but I want to go over and give her a big hug.
I watch this wonderful, wonderful person walk down a long, narrow aisle—and then she slides Along Came a Spider into her hobo bag.
She stole the book.
And all I can think is Does that count as a sale?