March 15, 2003
Shopaholic Takes Toronto
I mentioned the other day that I was going into Toronto on Thursday night to meet Sophie Kinsella, who is the author of one of my favourite series of books. Not the most favourite, but I've enjoyed the books and reccomend them to people quite often. My friend Tara, from the bookstore came with me, and we meant to have a camera so we could document the trip, but forgot to bring one. As we were waiting in line though, we decided it must be documented and so I was deserted in line as Tara went to find somewhere to buy a disposable camera. Thus, the quality of the photos is a bit off, those disposable things don't produce the best photos when used inside, but still...better than nothing.
For me anyway, the day crawled by, for some reason whenever I'm looking forward to something, time crawls by. It didn't help that we spent the day prepping for inventory. Which basically meant checking every book in the store for a price, and then spining them all so it was obvious what was on the shelf. Boooring, plus, it made the store look like shit, which isn't such an issue I suppose, but still, we spend the majority of our time making sure it looks good, so when it doesn't it bothers me, a lot. Eventually it got close to time to leave, Tara showed up, and then Barbara who was there to relieve me, arrived early and said "GO!". I really like her. ;) So off we went.
The previous night I was meant to find directions to the store, via mapquest or something similar, and print them off so we'd know exactly where we were going. For some reason, I ended up not doing that. I don't remember what I was doing that had me distracted, but something sure did, and I forgot. It wasn't a huge deal since Tara had looked on a map the previous day to find directions, but I always feel better if I've got an actual map in front of me when I'm driving. But seriously, how lost can you get when your ultimate destination is on Yonge Street? Anyway, the directions we had were to go on the 401, get off at Yorkdale, drive down Allen road till we got to Eglinton and then go across to Yonge. I don't think Allen road has an exit off the 401, or if it does, we missed it entirely. But, not to worry, like I said, we were going to Yonge Street and that does have an exit.
My cousin once mentioned to me that if he got out of the city before 6:00pm on a Friday night his drive to the cottage went much faster than if he was detained because before 6:00pm you've got both lanes free to drive on, after 6:00pm people are allowed to park on the side of the road, therefore you lose that lane. He wasn't kidding. Though, people drive in that lane anyway, which means that they're half in that lane and half in the other lane. Much to Tara's amusement I talked to the drivers around me the entire time we were driving down Yonge Street. I even had someone cut me off at one point. For some reason he decided that even though I was driving straight and had the right of way that he'd turn left in front of me, thankfully at the time I was driving slowly, but I almost had a heart attack. Tara'd just finished complimenting me on how well I drove, and then this! Actually, at that point we were on the highway, I do drive well on the highway, you have to if you're going to drive on the 400 on a Friday night during the summer. The city I don't do quite as well.
At any rate, eventually we arrived and found a parking garage that we could park in. I wasn't quite sure about leaving my car outside on the street. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure about leaving my car at all, but oddly enough I didn't think they'd like it if I just drove it inside. So, we parked the car and then tried to find the way out of the garage. I don't think it should have been nearly as difficult as it was, but, it probably took us 15 minutes.
I can't even estimate how many people were there, I've never been good like that, but also they had the line winding all over the place, so it was a little difficult to judge, but I'd say there must have been at least a couple of hundred there, perhaps more. We waited in line for about 3 hours. At one point someone who I assumed to be some sort of manager (because he wasn't wearing a uniform) came wandering by and said that Sophie had said she'd sign till her hand was too sore to sign any more. Which gave hope to those of us at the back of the line. And we were, at the very back of the line. In fact, there were only two people behind us. Because I had to work till 6pm we didn't get there till almost 8pm, so we'd missed the discussion and Q&A period. Which is too bad, I'd have liked to see it.
Someone came around with ballots to fill out, which was really a survey on the event. The question that made me laugh was "What was your favourite part of the event?" Since I hadn't even met Sophie yet all I could say was "The fabulous people we met in line." Though, that's not what I said. I mentioned how helpful I thought all the staff were (they were, far more helpful and knowledgeable than the ones at the local Indigo), and something else, but I can't remember what it was now. And still we stood in line. Eventually when I got close enough to see, I realized that they had a gate sort of thing set up and a security guard was letting people through but only a few at a time. It was then I realized how crazy it was to be standing in line to get a book autographed, but...it was too late at that point to do anything but keep standing in line :)
As I mentioned we stood in line for ages, and therefore ended up talking to the people around us in line. The girl in front of us in line was funny. She was a big fan, had all of the books with her from home and brought her camera so that the last picture on the film could be of her and Sophie, that way she'd be able to make Sophie her bookmark. It was sort of funny, and the girl was very nice though, she seemed a bit vague to me. The girls behind us were quite funny though, and we swapped book reccomendations for most of the time.
So eventually after talking books for hours, and then discussing jobs, and then where we live, etc.. We got to the gate by the security guy, of course, because we were the last people in line, we didn't have to stop at the gate, the security guy let us all through at once, so over we went to the next place to stand in line, which was directly behind the table they had Sophie set up at. I made a comment at that point, that even though there were still the same amount of people in front of me in line I felt like I was so much closer than I was before, to which someone in front of me turned around and said 'well, you are closer.' I just love a smartass, don't you? Especially one that wasn't invited to the conversation.
At this point we noticed two things. One because we work in a bookstore, the other because we're girls.
Am I the only one that finds it incredibly disturbing that someone thought it was smart to merchandise this book with a bunch of kids games? I don't think it shouldn't be sold by any stretch of the imagination, I just wonder who thought a book on Erotic Art fit into a display that contains Mr. Potato Head, Trouble and Junior Pictionary.
Also, Sophie was wearing the.best.shoes.ever.
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So, finally we get to the front of the line and get to meet Sophie. I brought my copy of Shopaholic Ties the Knot, which is actually the British version, so she commented on that. I told her because I couldn't wait for it to be released in North America, I'd ordered it from Amazon UK. And said that I'd already ordered her next one the same way. She was surprised and said 'you've already got my new book?', I'd have to be a super woman to do that, because it hasn't even been released in the UK yet. :)
Tara said to her that we were hoping that when she comes back to promote the next book that she'd come to our store and do an autographing, at which point one of 'her people' said, well you'll have to sell more Sophie books than any other Coles store to accomplish that. At that point I started talking to someone who I thought at the time must be a publisher representative, but have since revised that, I figure he was probably a publicist or an agent or something. He mentioned that there was going to be another staff incentive contest in April. Last year when Shopaholic Takes Manhattan was released, every time a staff member sold one of the books they filled out a ballet which then were sent to head office. At that point they were tossed together and a winner was chosen. The prize was a shopping spree in Manhattan, which was rather appropriate. He mentioned the prize this time, but I forget what it's going to be.
We mentioned to him that whenever we're having a slow day we grab a pile of her books and hand sell them from the cash desk, and that whenever anyone asks for suggestions, that's what we offer up. He looked at me for a moment, and then said, come with me, I'm going to tell you a secret. It turns out that Sophie Kinsella's name is not Sophie Kinsella. Her name is in fact Madeleine Wickham. And she's written 7 books. Sophie is her middle name, and Kinsella is her mothers maiden name. And, I now have 7 more books to read!