Aberdeenshire

I ordered a few more copies of my recent book today. I need a few to sell on to an admiring public. My financial adviser wants one and the whisky shop at Inverurie are almost sold out of signed copies.
Of course, the new book is also nearing completion and a third draft – or is it a fourth, is well underway.

All that remains is to sort out those last three chapters. Typhoid, oil and Trump as I recall. Plus, a wee bit about Piper Alpha. It’s all in the best possible taste and in the big scheme of things all should be well.

The ordering process however was a bit weird. Now, I know for a fact that Amazon have around 30 copies left in stock prior to the next reprint and if you try to order from the site they might even go as far as to offer free delivery for orders over a tenner.

Imagine my surprise then when my distributors advised that they had some books in stock, but they could not fulfil my entire order right now.

“Hi, can I order 25 books please?”
“Of course, do you have an account with us?”
“Yes, that would be a positive, in fact I am the author.”
Account details were duly shared.

“How many books would you like to order?”
“25 please.”
“Ah, sorry we can’t currently fulfil that number.”
“OK, how many do you have in stock please?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you that.”
“Really? Then how do we proceed please?”
“Well, how many copies would you like?”
“How about 24?”
“Nope”
“23?”
“Nope.”
“22 then?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe 21 then?”
“Yes we can do that. Would you like to put the remaining four on back-order?”
“Yes please.”

I kid you not …

The A-Z of Curious Aberdeenshire is available from Amazon
Location: Aberdeen, UK

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