More on the news last Friday that BookSense.com links are being added to the websites of NPR and the New York Times as book purchasing options.
Roger Doeren, COO of Rainy Day Books, Fairway, Kan., who lobbied extensively with the New York Times to add a BookSense.com hyperlink to its online bestseller lists, noted in a conversation with Shelf Awareness that the bookstore has an absolute policy on hyperlinks for its author events and mentions of authors.
The store will stage author appearances and list them online and in its
weekly author events e-mail newsletter only if the authors and
publishers involved have BookSense.com hyperlinks on their websites and
e-mails. "If authors have only an Amazon.com hyperlink in their e-mails
and websites," Doeren wrote, "we will inform them of their error and
omission and their need to have a BookSense.com hyperlink in order for
us to proceed with producing a Rainy Day Books author event."
Compliance, he continued, is "100% effective." Rainy Day is well-known for its extensive author event program.
In addition, even in mentioning titles, Rainy Day will hyperlink from
Rainy Day's website and its author events weekly e-mail newsletter to
authors' websites only if the authors' websites hyperlink to
BookSense.com.
Doeren explained: "Author event etiquette is that Amazon.com hyperlinks
in publishers' and authors' e-mails, marketing, publicity and websites
is immature, inappropriate, unacceptable and unwise. Independent
booksellers must stand strong and together in promoting BookSense.com
[and] make themselves known for the valuable service that we provide to
book buyers at a fair price."