Someone wrote in to ask whether Booktrovert.org does pre-orders. They had seen the feature over at booktrovert.com, which invites you to "secure upcoming releases before they hit the shelves." Stay ahead of the hype. Reserve the future.
We want to answer this honestly, which means starting somewhere unexpected. Yes. We do pre-orders. We do nothing but pre-orders. At Booktrovert.org, every book is a pre-order, because every book is slow, and slow is the only speed we have ever been able to afford.
Let me explain how it works, because it does work, in the way that a very old clock works.
You tell Randy the book you want. Randy writes it on the pad. The pad is the system. There is no other system. The pad has been the system since 1997 and we have filled four of them, though we can only currently locate three. (The missing pad covers a stretch in 2004 that several staff members remember fondly and none can prove.)
Here is the part that surprises people. The book you pre-order has, in nearly every case, already come out. Often decades ago. We pre-order Treasure Island roughly twice a month. The release date passed in 1883. We are not ahead of the hype. We are behind all of it, comfortably, with a cushion.
This is not a flaw in the pad. This is the philosophy. A pre-order is a promise that a book is coming to you. We make that promise. We simply do not promise when, and we have noticed that the books were always going to outlive the waiting anyway. The book does not care that it came out in 1883. The book is patient. You should try to be more like the book.
Once you reserve a title, you hold a place in the line. The line begins at the front door, runs past the arcade, and ends at a folding chair I am sitting in right now. The line does not move. It is not supposed to move. People think a line is a thing that advances, but a line is really just an agreement about order, and order, we have found, is enough.
You will be told your number. As of this morning we are calling number 11. We have been calling number 11 since a Tuesday in March. The person who is number 11 stepped out to get a coffee and has built, in the interim, what we understand to be a satisfying life. We hold their place regardless. That is the promise. The coffee does not void the promise.
When your pre-order is ready, it ships the only way anything ships from here, which is by Randy and a child's red wagon, down a slope, in whatever weather has decided to attend. We covered the wagon at length when we walked through the merch, and the wagon has not changed, because the wagon is forever. Delivery ranges from two weeks to a span of time we have agreed to call "soon" with a straight face.
You will know your pre-order has arrived because the dust on the cover will be a slightly different dust than your house produces. Ours is older. Ours has read more.
A small number of patrons pre-order books that have not been written. We allow this. We encourage it, quietly. There is a man, possibly Randy, possibly the draft from the window, who has had a sequel to Treasure Island on reserve since 1998. It is not coming. He knows it is not coming. He renews the reservation every year, and every year we write it on the pad, because hope is a kind of order too, and the pad does not judge.
The Ghost of Mark Twain, who pre-ordered his own collected works and is annoyed they keep arriving, says a pre-order is "the politest possible way to admit you believe in tomorrow." We have framed this. The frame is also chipped.
If what you actually wanted was to reserve a real upcoming release and get it the day it drops, that is a genuinely lovely service and it is right over here: booktrovert.com. They will hold your title and deliver it on time, by which they mean the correct time, the agreed time, the time printed on the thing.
If instead you would like to reserve a book that came out before you were born and wait for it with no particular urgency, the pad is open and the chair is comfortable. While you wait, you might read why we keep insisting the two Booktroverts are not the same Booktrovert. You are number 12 now. Number 11 says hello, from their coffee, from their whole new life.
Reservedly,
Booktrovert #1991