Nielsthooft.com

Help! They’re shredding my book!

Want to buy my book at half the original price? Please click on the Contact link above and let me know! Not sure what I’m talking about? Then please read the following short history.

* March 26, 2006 – Annemieke calls me and tells me a letter from my publisher arrived. It says that Querido is about to shred the remaining 1615 copies of my debut novel ‘Toiletten’. This doesn’t really register with me until she e-mails the contents of the letter the next day. At that point I decide I should do something – it just feels wrong to let those books be destroyed.
* March 29, 2006 – after discovering that Querido is willing to sell me the books at cost price, I post a blog entry called “They’re Destroying My Novel!”:http://www.nielsthooft.com/theyre-destroying-my-novel It invites people to order books from me — so I don’t go broke buying them back — and to come up with fun things to do with the rest. Things speed up from here on.
* March 31, 2006 – Hans Nijenhuis of ‘NRC Next’ hears about my story, asks me to do some research and write an article for his paper. A couple of fun facts pop up – for example, more than a million books are shredded on a yearly basis, in The Netherlands alone, and they’re all turned into toilet paper. Today “the column”:http://www.nielsthooft.com/help-ze-versnipperen-mijn-boek (now online, in Dutch) appears, urging many readers to e-mail me enthusiastically.
* April 3, 2006 – in a matter of days, I sell almost 500 books. Then, Querido tells me they’ve managed to sell 750 copies to a budget bookstore called De Slegte. Also, they’ve decided to forget about this cost price thing – they’re giving me 865 copies of ‘Toiletten’ for free. The bottom line is the evil book-eating shredding-machines have been defeated. At least, for now.
* Current day – even though I’d like to, I can’t give the books away for free. My publisher feels that this would give De Slegte a really bad deal. They will let me sell them at half the original price, though. My house is still full of small pink books, so if you want one, let me know by hitting the Contact link above!