It's a Mad, Mad, Mail Order World--Reb MacRath

Imagine: you need a certain something that's become a missing link for you.

Now, yours could be most anything: an entry in a series you're reading...a special product you use on your hair...a part for something you adore. The two things I needed this weekend were: a refill packet for my thick-barreled Dr. Grip pen and what I'll call a jibbergiver. Or let's shorten that to a JG: a secret ingredient I needed for a promotion I'm planning.

I began at the downtown Office Depot, where I'd bought the pen two months ago. This time I saw Store Closing signs. And, sure enough, at Clearance prices the shelves had been pretty much emptied. I tried Target and several drug stores--but they did not carry the refill or pen.

Bummed out, I moved on to the JG. I figured Hallmark would be my best bet and went to the downtown location. Permanently closed. Again I tried Target and drug stores. No luck.

I began to see a pattern here based on facts of life:

Office Depot swallowed Office Max...but has now been kicked out of the town by high rent. And there's just one metro bookstore--you guessed it, Barnes & Noble, half of whose sales come from other than books now that they've bankrupted Borders. Only the speedy sure sellers are stocked.

For books not stocked by B&N (99% of the titles in print...and any book that's out of print), I know to shop at Amazon. Or Powell's Books in Portland. And this weekend's taught me that Amazon can be there for everything else--from pen refills to, yes. JGs.

Need a handsome, good-quality vest that's simply loaded with pockets? Well, you won't find it at Macy's or Nordstrom. But you will online at SCOTTeVEST...for a third of what any retail store would charge you.

Had it with exorbitant Fusion razor blade prices? Online options do abound: Harry's, Dorco, Dollar Razor Club...

There's no need to ban Barnes & Noble or chain department stores. They serve a purpose and they can be fun. But the mail order world is far saner, to me, than one in which I'm sold a pen but can't obtain the refills. And I won't be the fool of a store system where I cannot find, to save my life, a goddamned jibbergiver.

FREE SPECIAL BONUS FOR WRITERS!

Many of us spend our entire careers considering ourselves to be failures when it comes to the Brass Ring. If we publish eBooks, we mourn that we aren't in print. But even if we are in print, we mourn the size of our print runs and the fact that our books aren't in every store. And if they do appear in stores, we weep because small orders almost guaranty their return.

We must accept one simple fact: publishing has become in larger order a mail order business. And this goes for both print and eBooks. We haven't failed because we only publish digitally or because our books haven't 'sold through' in brick and mortar stores. We've succeeded because: we wrote and published them...and because online they still live to be sold. 

So let us begin by accepting the fact of a Mail Order world. And let's move on in next month's post to The Wild, Wild West of Direct Mail.