Cornering the second-hand market
About once a week I check out my page on Amazon.co.uk, just to verify that The Well-Tempered Clavier hasn’t sunk without trace.
I can report that my doughty little ship is still afloat - just - and is still the Perfect Partner for my ex-wife’s book Daisy Dooley.
I sense it in my waters that the pair of us are due to be twinned together for a long time yet - not just with this book but any other books that we might have published.
While I’m on Amazon, I also check out the reviews (all 14 of them and counting). Thank you very much indeed to the readers who’ve helped get me 4 1/2 stars out of five.
But one of the slightly irksome things about my Amazon listing is the number of second-hand books that are on sale for "£2.99 - Just like new!" and "£3.31 - Used like new!"
What I can’t get out of my mind is this picture of these people very carefully reading the book, not dog-earing the pages, not scuffing the spine, so that as soon as they’re finished, they can go and flog the book on the net.
It’s the complete opposite of me. I am a total book-junkie, and have book-shelves going up to the ceiling (and it’s a high ceiling, I can tell you, close to 14-feet).
But there’s only one way to deal with these second-hand booksellers. I’m going to buy up every single copy of the Clavier. Give me a month, and I’ll have cornered the market.