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Showing posts from August 28, 2006

Comment: Street Dates & Street Ethics; Call for Guest Bloggers

I got to thinking about street dates for books over the weekend. This will likely be a short post, due to depressing weather and an overwhelming to-do list, but hopefully it will be food for thought. The street date (or on-sale date, which I'll use interchangeably though there are subtle differences) is the official date on which a book can be sold in bookstores. The most famous of these, of course, is for Harry Potter; remember all those crates of books waiting for the midnight release? Most street dates aren't down to the minute, but as a rule the more highly anticipated the book, the more strict the on-sale date. This Tuesday, August 29, is the street date for two such highly anticipated books: Haruki Murakami's new novel BLIND WILLOW, SLEEPING WOMAN (Knpf) and the paperback edition of Zadie Smith's ON BEAUTY (Penguin). My store will likely receive our shipment of these books today (Monday), but we are strictly forbidden to sell either of them until tomorrow. Street