Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Rants and Stuff => Topic started by: Link von Kelsier Harvey XXIV on April 21, 2010, 05:44:41 AM
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So there's this shelf in the BYU bookstore where they keep all of Brandon Sanderson's books. Nice big happy display. Hardbacks, paperbacks, signed and numbered copies of Warbreaker, The Gathering Storm, Alcatraz, it's all there. I walk by here from time to time, just so that if anyone happens to glance at them going by I can heartily recommend them. Now the tragedy. I went by today, and while the pile is still there, the shelf has now been invaded by a pile of Stephanie Meyer's books. Brandon Sanderson and Stephanie Meyer, on the same display shelf. Maybe I'm making too big a deal about this, but this is eating my soul. :'(
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This is Blasphemy!!! This is MADNESS!!!
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what the...
Ug.
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I just died a little inside. . . .
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hrmmmm college bookstore selling an instructors novels. . . .seems almost like nepotism. :)
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So there's this shelf in the BYU bookstore where they keep all of Brandon Sanderson's books. Nice big happy display. Hardbacks, paperbacks, signed and numbered copies of Warbreaker, The Gathering Storm, Alcatraz, it's all there. I walk by here from time to time, just so that if anyone happens to glance at them going by I can heartily recommend them. Now the tragedy. I went by today, and while the pile is still there, the shelf has now been invaded by a pile of Stephanie Meyer's books. Brandon Sanderson and Stephanie Meyer, on the same display shelf. Maybe I'm making too big a deal about this, but this is eating my soul. :'(
Welcome to the business of economics, tragic but true, Stephanie Meyers out sold Brandon's books so I'm not surprised that happened.
Still, we can moan and bewail the tragedy, or maybe launch a protest and have a book burning –only kidding ;D
Me, I'm probably a traitor to this cause though because I've read both authors and enjoyed them, though Brandon's is a little more to my liking than teenage vampire romances –I skipped many a pages of Twilight when the lovey-dovey stuff became too much.
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/cry
that is all.
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hrmmmm college bookstore selling an instructors novels. . . .seems almost like nepotism. :)
I think it's only nepotism if they put professors' books on a class's required reading list. :)
...Which has actually happened at my university. But it gave me an excuse to purchase and read Anne's novel, so I didn't mind. :P
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hrmmmm college bookstore selling an instructors novels. . . .seems almost like nepotism. :)
I think it's only nepotism if they put professors' books on a class's required reading list. :)
...Which has actually happened at my university. But it gave me an excuse to purchase and read Anne's novel, so I didn't mind. :P
This happens a lot in my classes. Generally it involves a reference book for a programming language though, so it makes sense.
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One of our English professors put a novel by one of our creative writing profs on her required reading list for a Canadian literature class. I don't think professors are allowed to use their own books for their own classes, though.
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I had a number of classes where the professor wrote the textbook. It's pretty common.
Brandon used Elantris as a textbook once, though only after the students picked it.
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Huh. Maybe it's different here, or maybe I was just way off-base on that one.
Come to think of it, I did have a class last year in which the professor used an edition of The Mill On The Floss that he had edited. *shrugs*
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The Sci-Fi instructor at UTD is required by the school to include his book in the curriculum.
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The shelf is now occupied by a few copies of Warbreaker, TGS, and a big ol' pile of Fablehaven.
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The Sci-Fi instructor at UTD is required by the school to include his book in the curriculum.
Huh. That's a new one.
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NOOOOOOOOO!!!!THIS IS MADNESS!!!I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION! EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT STEPHANIE MEYER IS A LOAD OF COW CRAP! AARGH, I'M SO MAD I CAN HARDLY SEE!!!!!!
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Sounds to me like they're going for a LDS fantasy author theme. Yeah, it may seem like blasphemy to some readers, but as a bookseller it makes sense to me. The idea is to use one author's popularity to get readers hooked on the others so you sell more books.
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In defaince of all that has come before and the usual conventions against necro-posting (it's still on the first page; does that make this necro-posting?) , I will now post as if nobody else has responded to this blasphemy.
NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! THIS CANNOT STAND UNPUNISHED!!!!!
T-Square. Join me. Let us ready our obsidian knives and Oculator's lenses and go 'deal with' the person that stocks those shelves. He/she is clearly a Librarian, an agent of Ruin, and a Derethi priest(ess). At the bare minimum. He/she might also be a Parshendi and/or a mercenary.
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Given that I've seen Brandon's works in most bookstores I frequent that include sci-fi and fantasy, the BYU Bookstore not including his stuff (or, alas, Stephanie Meyer's) is just, well, unlikely. To say the least. He probably gets more attention as a local, but again, that just seems like smart marketing.
As for teachers including their own textbooks as required reading: Happens all the time in all kinds of fields. How it turns out depends mostly on the teacher and why they did it. For advanced classes (at least in the sciences) it's often the only or most up-to-date work of its kind, and you're taking the class from that teacher for the same reason you would buy their textbook. Other times, it's competing against much better works, and it's mostly a form of ego-stroking for the teacher (as well as a boost to their bottom line, but if they're teaching college, that's probably not why they went into the field), in which case you should be very afraid. I've even seen an experiment where the textbook written by the teacher is available online for free (Google BYU optics book. It's even being kept up to date. And includes biographies about major researchers gleaned from Wikipedia. Um, I don't even know what to say to that.)