I Have Lusted In My Heart For a Jimmy Carter Autograph
I just got back from Barnes and Noble in Union Square, where former President Jimmy Carter was scheduled to sign books tonight. I was ushered into a short-seeming line among the fiction shelves, where I entertained myself by rereading Our Endangered Values, pulling out copies of books I've reviewed for Publishers' Weekly and seeing if anybody's quoted me on their dust jackets (none yet so far), and rehearsing what I'd say while President Carter signed my books (settling on some boring thing about being honored to meet him and stuff). Finally, after two and a half hours of waiting, my excitement at meeting one of my heroes not even close to waning... about half of the people who'd come to the signing, including me, were herded away from the line and told that President Carter was leaving, and had stopped signing.
I'm not sure I have ever been more disappointed in my life. I think I was less disappointed when my backstage pass connection failed to come through at the last minute at the last Elvis Costello show I went to. I was 30 feet from my favorite living ex-President, and all I could do was stay in line while irate Barnes and Noble employees repeatedly cautioned us to keep moving, down the escalator, and home empty-handed. I pondered waiting outside by his car with the scary political wingnuts to try and snap a paparazzi photo as President Carter left the store, but decided that was beneath me and took a brief constitutional through the park to calm my nerves before getting on the train to home.
I haven't stopped being bitterly disappointed, though, and I would love to know who's responsible. Clearly, somebody sucks. A lot.
Who exactly sucks? Well, I'm not entirely sure.
It's certainly not President Carter himself. The guy is not exactly young these days (though he's plenty spry), and all that signing does tend to wear one out. It's not his fault he's so awesome that hundreds of people showed up wanting to meet him.
Possibly it's President Carter's "people" - but it can't be easy to coordinate a circus like this one, what with the crowds of fans, the odd non-fan, the Secret Service guys, the police escort, and whatnot.
It's probably not even Matt and Maria, the event planners for the Union Square Barnes and Noble. I go to a lot of events there, some even more heavily attended than this one, and most of them have been pretty smooth, with everybody getting what they wanted. Nevertheless, I will be calling them tomorrow to let them know how disappointed I was. (The assistant manager on duty, whose name is, I believe, William - fortyish, slouchy, crazy-ass sideburns - gave me their number. He was extremely nice about the situation, and assured me that they'd be happy to receive my feedback.)
Barnes and Noble itself is a contender, but they suck for so many other reasons, it hardly seems fair to single them out for this one.
So I don't know. I do know what would have made the evening better, though, and I'm putting it here in this very public, google-indexed forum so that maybe the right person will see it and put it in their to-consider file.
This event, and other big-time signings, needs wristbands. Big time. You know how big record stores like Tower and Virgin have those in-store artist appearances? Everyone who buys the album gets a wristband. Perhaps you don't even need a wristband to attend the reading or the Q&A portion of the evening. But only the people with the wristband get the signature, thus virtually guaranteeing that everyone goes home happy.
And really, I'm not a person whom it is hard to send home happy. The Carter event was poorly publicized, and the B&N website didn't even say what would be happening other than "author event," and I went anyway, figuring it was a win-win, whether it was just a reading, a reading and signing, or just a signing. I would have been happy to stop in a few days prior and get a wristband. I would have even paid full cover price for the book to do it. (Instead of picking up the book for half-price at the Strand, which I'm not proud of, but I admit I've done a few times before - like a couple of weeks ago with Jeffrey Toobin's book.)
I know B&N is capable of distributing wristbands, because I know they had them for the Harry Potter release. They need to realize that Harry Potter is not the only book out there for whom there's a clamoring throng. In fact, they need to start considering that the more they do to encourage order among the clientele for any and all clamoring-throng-type books, the happier everybody will be. Situations vary with each individual author and their publicity team, but one would think that everyone goes home happy in this situation - the author can limit the number of books they have to sign, the fans are guaranteed an autograph, and the store employees are not stuck herding thousands of irate customers around a circuitous obstacle course where they may or may not get a reward at the end.
Seriously, Barnes and Noble. Wristbands. Think about it.
I'm not sure I have ever been more disappointed in my life. I think I was less disappointed when my backstage pass connection failed to come through at the last minute at the last Elvis Costello show I went to. I was 30 feet from my favorite living ex-President, and all I could do was stay in line while irate Barnes and Noble employees repeatedly cautioned us to keep moving, down the escalator, and home empty-handed. I pondered waiting outside by his car with the scary political wingnuts to try and snap a paparazzi photo as President Carter left the store, but decided that was beneath me and took a brief constitutional through the park to calm my nerves before getting on the train to home.
I haven't stopped being bitterly disappointed, though, and I would love to know who's responsible. Clearly, somebody sucks. A lot.
Who exactly sucks? Well, I'm not entirely sure.
It's certainly not President Carter himself. The guy is not exactly young these days (though he's plenty spry), and all that signing does tend to wear one out. It's not his fault he's so awesome that hundreds of people showed up wanting to meet him.
Possibly it's President Carter's "people" - but it can't be easy to coordinate a circus like this one, what with the crowds of fans, the odd non-fan, the Secret Service guys, the police escort, and whatnot.
It's probably not even Matt and Maria, the event planners for the Union Square Barnes and Noble. I go to a lot of events there, some even more heavily attended than this one, and most of them have been pretty smooth, with everybody getting what they wanted. Nevertheless, I will be calling them tomorrow to let them know how disappointed I was. (The assistant manager on duty, whose name is, I believe, William - fortyish, slouchy, crazy-ass sideburns - gave me their number. He was extremely nice about the situation, and assured me that they'd be happy to receive my feedback.)
Barnes and Noble itself is a contender, but they suck for so many other reasons, it hardly seems fair to single them out for this one.
So I don't know. I do know what would have made the evening better, though, and I'm putting it here in this very public, google-indexed forum so that maybe the right person will see it and put it in their to-consider file.
This event, and other big-time signings, needs wristbands. Big time. You know how big record stores like Tower and Virgin have those in-store artist appearances? Everyone who buys the album gets a wristband. Perhaps you don't even need a wristband to attend the reading or the Q&A portion of the evening. But only the people with the wristband get the signature, thus virtually guaranteeing that everyone goes home happy.
And really, I'm not a person whom it is hard to send home happy. The Carter event was poorly publicized, and the B&N website didn't even say what would be happening other than "author event," and I went anyway, figuring it was a win-win, whether it was just a reading, a reading and signing, or just a signing. I would have been happy to stop in a few days prior and get a wristband. I would have even paid full cover price for the book to do it. (Instead of picking up the book for half-price at the Strand, which I'm not proud of, but I admit I've done a few times before - like a couple of weeks ago with Jeffrey Toobin's book.)
I know B&N is capable of distributing wristbands, because I know they had them for the Harry Potter release. They need to realize that Harry Potter is not the only book out there for whom there's a clamoring throng. In fact, they need to start considering that the more they do to encourage order among the clientele for any and all clamoring-throng-type books, the happier everybody will be. Situations vary with each individual author and their publicity team, but one would think that everyone goes home happy in this situation - the author can limit the number of books they have to sign, the fans are guaranteed an autograph, and the store employees are not stuck herding thousands of irate customers around a circuitous obstacle course where they may or may not get a reward at the end.
Seriously, Barnes and Noble. Wristbands. Think about it.
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