Book Shopping

Posted: March 23, 2011 | Categories: Miscellaneous

I was poking around in a mall in Plano Texas today and stopped by a Barnes & Noble just to see what's new, but of course to see if my BlackBerry book was on the shelves.

As I looked through the computer books I noticed something that's really indicative of the smartphone market. There were a TON of iPhone and Android development books (I didn't count, but I imagine there were around 30 or more overall) and even quite a few Windows Phone development books. As I searched and searched throughout the whole computer book section I only found one BlackBerry book.

Now, the good news is that the only BlackBerry book on the shelf was my book (BlackBerry Development Fundamentals), but how sad that with the 15 or so BlackBerry books on the market, there was only one on the shelf. As much as RIM's still selling a bunch of devices, it's clear they're losing mindshare.

It's cool to see my book on shelves, and I usually mention to the sales clerk at checkout that I am excited to see my book on the shelf. When I do this, sometimes the clerk acts excited for me (which happened today) but sometimes the clerk acts like it's no big deal. I'm not famous or anything, but they can't have that many authors come in off the street, can they? I secretly hope they'll ask me to sign the book, but that never happens. Why is that?

Wouldn't you be more interested in a book signed by the author? Why not have a pack of post-it notes that says something like 'Signed by the Author' with a place to sign - they could then post it inside the cover and someone who wanted it could keep it and someone who didn't could pull it out and throw it away. That wouldn't be that bad, would it?

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