GUEST BLOG: Diane Shipley on Shopdropping

Drop it like it's hot - a guest blog about a new book-related trend by ex-Trashi ed Diane Shipley.

You've heard of citizen journalism, but how do you feel about citizen shelf-stacking?

Shopdropping is the latest book-related trend from across the pond, and now it's starting to catch on here. As anarchist movements go, shopdropping is pretty uncontroversial but it does raise serious points about access to the arts and the homogenisation of culture. Authors and artists are using shopdropping both to raise the profile of their work and to prompt discussion about reduced shopper choice.

But what does shopdropping actually involve?

It's been described as 'reverse shoplifting' and includes anything from musicians surreptitiously sneaking CDs into Starbucks to artists dropping free homemade cards onto stationery store racks. As long as you can look past the whole non-payment angle like a good little anarchist, Shopdropping bypasses the whole 'how do you get a store to stock your product?' dilemma and one of groups who can use it to big advantage is writers. All you need is a sense of humour, a fast pair of feet and the willingness to give away stuff for free.

Self-published or small press authors don't have to wait for Borders to stock their latest masterpiece, they can simply sneak it onto the shelves themselves (adding an explanatory leaflet advertising their actions, naturally.) Avid readers can partake in a mild form of shopdropping too, and are having great fun doing so.
Whether it's popping into the local bookshop before work every day, and turning the Ken Follett face out, or hiding the ubiquitous Dan Brown behind a stack of Pat Barkers, the possibilities are endless, although potentially annoying or baffling to shop staff, of course.

As The New York Times reports, at super-sized book store Powell's in Portland, Oregon, the Christian faithful have been inserting church flyers into science books while atheists have retaliated by relocating Bibles to the science fiction section. Meanwhile, one book shop in Ohio has been so overcome by the volume of shopdropped work, they've given in and started to sell it. So this type of self-promotion (or promotion of an author you adore) can work.

But do you dare try it? I admit, if I see a book I love looking lonely and unloved, I'll pull out the spine a little, maybe even place it more prominently on the shelf. I consider it a public service. (You're welcome, Elinor Lipman). And at my local Waterstones this weekend, a fellow shopdropper (clearly a Russell Brand fan) had gone to work in a big way: all the books in the biography shelves were camouflaged by row after row of My Booky Wook. I find it hard to believe shop staff would be so audacious which leads me to believe shopdropping is taking off - in South Yorkshire, at least. Still, it begs the question:

Which book do you think most deserves to be shopdropped in this way. and why?

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