Reaction to Barnes and Noble trip - Erin

       I have worked in retail before, so some of what the first speaker, the girl who works for Barnes and Noble, said wasn’t news to me, but there were a few things she mentioned that I had not known before. The most interesting things I learned from her were the cost breakdown of a book and the shelf life of a new book. I knew that new books weren’t faced on the shelves for very long, but I didn’t know it was that short of a period of time.

       The next speaker, author Jonathan Maberry, was very interesting to me. Since I want to be an author myself, I found his insight into the business side of writing invaluable. I also found it very interesting how he helps run a writing center in Pennsylvania. I definitely plan on checking it out after his speaking about it. I had already known some of the things he mentioned, such as authors very rarely get to decide on cover art for their books and so forth, but some of the other things he spoke about were completely new to me. Obviously, I knew there was a business side to writing, but I didn’t realize how much of that is the writer’s responsibility. Overall, I really enjoyed the class’s visit to Barnes and Noble.