As Jonathan Karp continues his travelling bookseller roadshow to promote the launch titles for his new imprint, Twelve (which, er, might want to change its name at least temporarily) he reached a conclusion that seems screamingly obvious to anyone not slaving in a New York offices: booksellers have it tough. As he tells Publishers Weekly's Marcela Valdes, the tour proved to be "tremendously illuminating." He'd heard about some of the stores included in the campaign, like Powell's, his whole career, but this was the first time he met the people running them. "It reinforced a very strong idea that I had already that people are overwhelmed by choices," he said. "They can only absorb so much, and most of them feel besieged by what publishers are throwing at them."

Ah, publishing. One of the few business where the people who acquire the product have little, to any contact with those who handsell and distribute them.