It's hard to convince a bookstore to sell your book. Back in 1993 an editor I know was in Chicago for a sales meeting, and stopped by my store---The Children's Bookstore---with her marketing director. We went out to lunch. She told me that Barnes & Noble hadn't been stocking many of her children's books, so her team had come up with a clever strategem to bypass the B&N buyers. The editor and her marketing director had visited the B&N branch on the Upper West Side of New York City, and surreptitiously placed several books they had published right onto the B&N shelves. READ MORE