You never forget the first place you fainted from AWESOME.

The first time I ever saw one of my books in a bookstore was at the Borders on Westgate here in Austin.  My friend and fellow writer Amber had called to tell me she’d seen The Circle Within there, and later that day I went with my BFF and her SO to see it for myself.

Not only did they have it, it was on the front table.  The front table.

As das BFF can attest, I nearly passed out and had to sit down on the floor.

I’ve had a lot of wonderful milestones since then, some even more incredible, like the moment I realized I had just landed a contract for Queen of Shadows and Shadowflame from an honest-to-god major publishing house seemingly out of the clear blue nowhere; but that moment there at Borders will always stay with me as the first moment I felt like a real author.  It’s one thing to hold your book in your hand; it’s another to have a stack; it’s something else altogether to see a stack out in front at a big retail bookstore.

I admit that I haven’t shopped much at Borders in the last couple of years, but not because all my book money goes to Amazon; I try, whenever I can afford it, to buy new books from brick-and-mortar stores, particularly local ones like Austin mecca Book People (where I saw Queen of Shadows a month or two ago and nearly went ultrasonic in my squees).  My second choice is Barnes & Noble, which I feel has a superior selection to Borders, whose inventory has dwindled since they started floundering financially. The store by my apartment is basically crap, but I was still so saddened to hear that all the stores in Austin are closing, including the Westgate location where I first saw my own work on the New Nonfiction table.  I wish that they could at least keep that one store open.

One day my name will be on that marquee. Oh yes.

I don’t know what the future of publishing holds.  I know that there are a lot of people, myself included, who refuse to give up real books for the electronic replacements; yes, they’re convenient and easy to carry, but those of us who love the experience of books cannot be satisfied by a gadget, even a nifty keen one like Kindle or Nook.  I’m not against e-books; I have quite a few, purchased from bloggers or from e-courses like the Goddess Planner or 52 Weeks to Awesome, that are self-published and very cool…although in many cases I print them out, or at least print the pages I want to use for notes or other projects.

I just don’t want to see hard copy books vanish, and certainly not real bookstores.  Online browsing, again, is convenient; but it is not satisfying the way wandering around a standing store is.  My fingers trailing over the spines of hardbacks, inhaling the scent of paperbacks, discovering a random book stuck where it doesn’t belong that just happens to be exactly what I need…these things can’t be replaced by the click of a mouse.

Not to mention, the publishing industry is reeling from the onslaught of new media, and that means we writers might get shafted – publishers aren’t buying as many books, so new authors aren’t getting the chances they could if the market was better.  This is as much the economy as it is technology, but put both together and traditional publishers still need to catch up.  Things just change so alarmingly fast nowadays, and it’s so hard to predict what will catch fire and what will fizzle, an industry that’s done things basically the same way for decades doesn’t have the resources to jump on the new tech gracefully and exploit its possibilities both for e-book sales and for using social media to sell hardcopy books.  I don’t have any idea how to help except to keep writing, but I do know that the dream of being a bestselling author means something different now than it did when I first dreamed it as a seven year old girl.  Only time will tell what that dream means by the time I attain it.

Still, I am sad about Borders, not only because of my memories, but because I hate to see another bookseller fall.  I have nothing against Amazon per se – I shop there regularly – but I am aware, and you should be too, that when you buy a book at a deep discount, the author ends up seeing very little of her royalties, if any.  We get paid off full retail sales.  When you buy a used book at Half Price, the author gets nothing, because in theory she already got paid for it the first time.  Most people don’t think of buying a book as making an economic decision, but similarly to pirating other media, you have to consider what creative people are trying to make an honest living who can’t if their work is all over the internet.

People have asked me a number of times where they should buy my books to be most supportive of my writing career; I always say, start with a local brick-and-mortar, then a physical chain store, then online, then used – but if all you can afford is used, do it.  I’m not going to judge anyone for being too broke to pay full retail – books are expensive!  Like I said, I try to buy retail to support the industry, but I’ve had to decide between a new book and dinner before, and compromised with a used book and ramen.

This is not to say I’m some kind of anti-downloading saint either.  I’m just saying there are consequences, not so much for you as for the people who created what you’re ganking for free.  I don’t feel any particular compunction against downloading, say, network TV shows, because I wouldn’t have paid for them if I’d watched them live, and also because people who make TV shows generally are salaried (and unionized), not earning royalties; I do pay for cable, and I have season passes on iTunes for my favorite shows so I can have commercial-free versions for my iPod.  I try to support my shows in other ways, by turning more people onto them and talking about them on Twitter and Facebook (and here) to get more people watching.  I have been known to torrent certain things.  But books and music are a different story for me, especially books, as being a writer I feel the need to support my peers.

Which is why no matter how many books I own, I’ll always be  happy to buy more – not only am I doing something I love, I’m supporting in small measure others who are doing what they love.  I consider paying retail for a book a fair trade for giving that support which I hope to later receive myself.  But even longtime successful writers have to admit, at this point, that it’s no longer business as usual, and we have to learn to navigate these new technical waters…and I pray we can find a way to keep bookstores afloat.

Yes, I admit it: I’m a self-help junkie.  I love books about making life better.  Part of it is a writer thing – I love harvesting ideas from all over the place, whether for a novel or for my own benefit.  That’s part of why I continued to read Wicca 101 type books long after they were of any real use to me; you never know when something new and wonderful will jump out from even the most hackneyed material.  As an eclectic I learned early to “steal from the best, invent the rest.”  My bookshelves probably paint me as some sort of miserable neurotic with the attention span of an overcaffeinated gerbil, but I promise I’m not nearly as…well, okay.  Not quite as mental as my book collection would have you believe.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

I discovered Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project blog back when she was still working on the book, then sort of fell out of contact with it, only to be reminded of it after the book itself had become a bestseller (Go Gretchen!).

Rubin was not an unhappy person by any means, but she realized there were areas of her life that she thought she could work on to improve life for both herself and her family.  She decided to test-drive all sorts of theories and practices that are supposed to make people happier and blog about them throughout the year, then turn the results and her observations into a book.  Each month she chose a different facet of life to concentrate on:  money, parenting, marriage, et cetera; within each category she focused on specific changes and kept track of her successes using a resolutions chart.

Sound a bit anal retentive for something as vaguely-defined as happiness?  Maybe, but the book (and blog) is a thoughtful and insightful examination of a variety of small things you can try to improve your quality of life as a whole.  Not all of them worked for Rubin, but some (including the resolutions chart itself) really did boost her overall happiness, not in a huge dramatic way but in a broader and gentler sense.

For example, during the “marriage” month she worked on learning to “fight right,” nag less, and do small things to show her affection for her husband; often it’s the little gestures that keep a relationship from devolving into an onerous duty rather than a joyful connection.  The conscious effort to speak more positively to her partner took a lot of work and concentration, but the results were worth the mindfulness.

The Happiness Project is not meant to be revolutionary; as I said, it’s designed to create ripples of change by adding small but significant habits (and correcting others) that streamline and sweeten day to day living.  The big lesson of the book is that yes, it is possible to be happier through conscious effort.  Even if you already knew that, however, the smaller lessons are equally valuable, and I came away from The Happiness Project brimming with ideas.

Rubin has added a lot of online tools to her website including a resolutions chart, resources for Happiness Project groups, and a variety of lists.  She’s not a fly-by-night self-help guru; her resources include Aristotle, Thoreau, and Benjamin Franklin.  Her project isn’t made up of lofty spiritual ideals, but practical advice and goals for modern people with mortgages, in-laws, and packed schedules.

I definitely recommend adding The Happiness Project to your reading list to complement spiritual works like the Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness.

(I’ll be talking about some of what I’m incorporating from THP into my Sacred Intentions for the year in future posts.)