A number of independent booksellers are upset that a recent second, unofficial book tour by Bill Clinton involved only Barnes & Noble outlets. The tour was limited to B&N stores because Clinton, before his open-heart surgery, was being flown to the different cities in B&N's corporate jet. A high-level official at My Life publisher Knopf confirmed that Clinton flew to several Midwestern stops on the B&N plane after the former president and B&N had a conversation that culminated in an invitation.
The moves have indie booksellers concerned about the financial involvement of B&N. "It's out there in the world now that bookstore tours are for sale," said Kris Kleindienst of St. Louis, Mo.'s Left Bank Books. "I'm very disturbed, and I think it sets a very dangerous precedent."
Reacting to the criticism, Barnes & Noble spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating said in a written reply that "book signings are not...for sale. And no, we have not attempted to buy them." But citing a Secret Service requirement that presidents fly chartered flights, Keating wrote, "We were pleased to provide President Clinton with the proper courtesies due a former president, and we would do so again at a moment's notice."
The locations for the tour also upset Kleindienst, who, like other Midwestern booksellers, said she was "led to believe" by Knopf in June that a second domestic leg of his tour would begin in the late summer and include more Midwestern indies.
Booksellers said that the decision against a second tour, as well as the choice to include so many mass-merchandisers on the first tour at the expense of some independent booksellers, left them cold. "I feel like business is about relationships. I understand money like everyone else. But the fact of it is that we produce events for Random House all year round and we sell all of their list," said Vivien Jennings of Rainy Day Books in Fairway, Kans.
Jennings had been confident her store would be a tour stop—so much so that she rented a venue and printed more than 1,200 invitations, which she sold with the book—though she emphasized that Random had stopped short of making hard promises.
A Knopf spokesperson said, "We did our best to accommodate a lot of different accounts." As for the B&N trips, a source at Knopf said that because the retailer was paying for the trip by offering its plane, the publisher had little say on the venues.
B&N has a company plane that required $2.4 million in upkeep last year, according to a recent SEC filing. Sources said B&N has used the plane to transport other high-profile authors.
As for the rest of the fall plans, Clinton had been scheduled to travel to Tokyo and other spots in Asia, but those plans have been suspended since his operation. He also was to have made a number of key stump appearances for Kerry that might have helped his book.
