Thursday, July 15, 2004
Spelunking for Hewitt
The St. Cloud BN is quite spacious, and the current event books not on the displays are past the information center in the middle of the store (which has the appearance of a pillbox and would make a good recon point.) So it's probably 75 feet from the storefront to this aisle. Books are in alphabetical order, so I go to 'H'. Here's what I found.
There are a few books I can't identify, and since I suffer from advanced CRS syndrome I won't be able to tell you what they are, but I'm sure my intelligent readers will. From left to right you have
- two copies of Stephen Hayward's The Real Jimmy Carter. We had Steve on our show twice, once about this book, excellent.
- three copies of something I can't remember or identify from the picture.
- one copy of Hewitt.
- Jim Hightower. If Hightower's book was touching my book, I'd burn it.
- one copy of Hitchens latest book, which I really haven't had a chance to look at yet.
- Horowitz. Now I'm convinced the Hayward and Horowitz books are there because I've gone in and ordered them from there. I have noticed that when I buy a book from there another appears, so I use this store often.
- single copies of two things I cannot identify either. It'll most likely start with Hi or Ho.
- eight copies of "Why I Hate the Republicans". Eight. Think they know their market, or are they just pushing up sales? Note the positioning -- showing the face of the book is signaling "Hey, over here! Look at me! You hate 'em too, dont'cha?"
- three copies of "The Bush-Hater's Handbook". I'm sensing a theme.
- two copies of Ariana Huffington.
So they cover all the titles, but look at what they carry more of. The decision to hold multiple copies of the Left books; the positioning of them. Sorry, Shawn and Sean, but I think this BN didn't get the memo.
UPDATE: Shoot, forget my tag line. Amazon rank: Hewitt 16, "Why I Hate..." 75,392. Markets work.