New book outlets and the "disappearance" of PINS

While the holiday shopping season may be over, authors like myself hope that you still consider buying books. A new outlet, along with a recently developed one, provide the opportunity to purchase books like mine from independent booksellers online. 

One book that you won't find among those is my first novel PINS. I'll explain why, but first the good news.

ShopQueer.co is a new LGBTQ-owned online shop co-created by author Eric Servini. They're growing their inventory evevry day, and you can find the best recent LGBTQ books there.

It was very easy to use as an author. I simply entered my ISBNs of my books and in a matter of days they were (almost) all listed. 

And with Bookshop.org, I was able to list almost all my books, including The Lost of New York, written by my uncle seventy years ago. The straight-themed novel, which I edited and self-published, doesn't quite fit into a queer-focused seller's inventory (You can read more about that on my website).

But why is my debut novel far and wide missing from these lists? That's because if you ask a bookseller for the copy, they'll look it up on the wholesalers list like Ingram and Baker and Taylor, which consider it out of print. But that's not true. In fact I still have about 150 copies left.

The problem is, since I closed Myrmidude Press as a DBA, I stopped shipping to Ingram, Baker and Taylor and other smaller book distributors. So, according to them, the book has run its course. You can also find use copies on Amazon and elsewhere, of course. And via e-books/Kindle, all my other books are available as well.

Having contacted wholesale buyers/resellers, they don't buy a case full of old books, especially more than 20 years old. Which make sense, but it would be nice if some smart professor added the book to their curriculum lesson that I can to ship some free copies to some university. PINS was part of nearly a dozen college courses years ago.

But with the flood of new LGBTQ literature, there's really no need for it right now and most people are reading online, and even on their phones.

But what bugs me is the idea that PINS is considered out of print when it actually isn't. Having self-published in a variety of formats, I have found that Ingram is the most dependable and easy for bookstores to find your books. Also, by not publishing through (evil) Amazon, indie booksellers are happier to carry your books. It is a bit of a hassle; you have to input chapter by chapter and the formatting can be difficult with a limited array of fonts. 

And if you didn't know, PINS actually had two printings. The first edition was only a thousand copies. It was all just a big experiment to see if it would work. It did. After the success and reviews, I then ordered five thousand copies from the printer in Michigan. I review excerpts to the front and back cover; well, most of them. There were so many! And then cleaned up all the typos and adjusted the coloring on the cover art.

The idea of doing a third printing would put it back in circulation in any bookstore in the world. I'm considering it now and I understand that it's a lot of work when I have other books already in the process. 

In the meantime, however, if you're reading this, and I know people aren't reading blogs much anymore, but feel free to inquire, send me an e-mail or a DM on my Facebook author page, and I'll be happy to send you a few free paperback copies of PINS while they last. 

Or you could just go to your local library. I recently checked, and was happy to see that 84 U.S. libraries have a copy.

So until the next book project is under way, I'll consider revamping PINS one more time. It's done me well with a translation, a stage adaptation and an audiobook. 

Until then, buy my other books, and other authors' books, on ShopQueer.co and Bookshop.org

 

Among the recent reviews on Amazon, I'll leave you with this expanded insightful rave (with spoilers!) from reader Philip:

"Jim Provenzano explores the homophobic teenage jock culture which sometimes can escalate to ugly incidents in his 1999 first novel PINS. The story is told through the eyes of 15-year-old sophomore Joey Nicci ("his name was not pronounced Nitchey, but Nee-Chee, after which he was dubbed Neech") who has just made the varsity squad wrestling team and fallen for teammate Donald "Dink" Kohrs ("everybody called him Dink because his penis was small -- Dinky Dick -- but the way it pushed up in his sweat pants, Joey figured that wasn't always true"). While Neech and Dink explore their mutual attraction, the team's bullies direct their homophobic wrath against Anthony "The Whiner" Lambros who not only is gay but perhaps more damning is a poor athlete who never wins a match. It's a brutal ending for poor Anthony, and that tragic moment becomes a turning point for Joey Nicci.

"Provenzano provides an authentic voice in portraying the high school locker room, and accurately captures every nuanced dynamic in this complex environment. PINS honestly portrays wrestling's homoerotism and how that can result into homophobic defenses among teenage boys, and captures the innocent rough-and-tumble world of boys and how that can escalate into sinister over-the-line violence.

"Joey Nicci is a likable kid with a Jersey accent -- he wrestles in the "one-twenny-six" weight class -- that makes me smile each time it comes out but it's not so constant that you have to be fluent in "Nerk" (translated as "Newark" in the King's English) in order to understand him. Neech is as nuanced as the book. He's no choir boy but he's a good kid who in the end does the right thing after appreciating that one doesn't go along just in order to belong. It's also refreshing to see a teen character who genuinely loves his family which is there for him in both the triumphant and the trying times. "It's an Italian thing," as Joey says.

"God bless Joey Nicci in PINS. Notwithstanding all the homophobic crap that Neech went through on his high school wrestling team, he found love and kissed a boy."