11 Accidentally Funny Book Placements at Bookstores

The right book on the right shelf at the right time. (Even my book got in on the act.)

Last year I had a book

published. And when you’re a first-time author (and an un-famous one), there’s a tendency to worry about whether your book is stocked in bookstores. So occasionally, I’ll find myself wandering into a Borders or Waldenbooks or B. Dalton’s or Barnes & Noble to see if I’m stocked. If not, I get angry on the inside then walk out with my head hung like Charlie Brown. If I were bolder perhaps I’d tell an employee they need to order it, but he didn’t get that masters in interpretive western fiction to take direction from the likes of me.

Anyway, this list was inspired by the 11th point below… which, to date, is the best place anyone has discovered my book in a store.

Here are 11 awkward, funny and sometimes just horrendous accidental book placements in bookstores. Let’s see Amazon do THIS.

1 | What the dog saw

Based on the contents of the average Chelsea Handler book, the dog saw the same thing a seemingly boundless stream of dudes saw.

2 | You sure you want to call that fiction?

I’m not positive, but I think Barnes & Noble tacitly joined the ranks of Holocaust denial. AND the ranks of Guinness world record denial.

3 | The Gay & Lesbian section

The Justin Bieber thing is obviously why this picture made it online. (Its placement here is a little too “prank-y” for me, but whatever.) I was more focused on whether the book a few spots down is about Stonewall Jackson being gay. (Upon three seconds of research, it is not.)

4 | Macintosh

I guess Windows Vista books are appropriate because of how many people Vista drove to Mac?

5 | Diet books and snacks

It’s just a cruel way to taunt the people in the diet books aisle. Or, conversely, a really misleading sign for people looking for a shelf full of cookies.

6 | Sexuality and relationships

I feel like this is a 25-minute Rita Rudner routine just waiting to be performed.

7 | Is There Sex After 40?

Just because it looks like a coloring book dosen’t mean it’s a coloring book. Although it’s probably a better read for your child than a book on why she’s a princess. Age-inappropriate reality trumps the perpetuation of delusional entitlement.

8 | Dogs

Cats.

9 | Classics?

Popularity does not a classic make. I recently read one paragraph of Fifty Shades of Grey. She refers to the vagina as “my sex.” Come on. Somewhere Tess of the d’Urbervilles is rolling over in her prison grave.

10 | Cooking Your Dog

If you saw this and *didn’t* think of the Simpsons episode where the aliens have the book that goes from How To Cook Humans to How To Cook For Humans to How To Cook Forty Humans to How To Cook For Forty Humans… well, then we really don’t know each other that well.

11 | Hey, it’s my book!

In an abstract way, yes, my book is a pregnancy book — in the way that Barry White is pregnancy music or oysters are pregnancy food. I didn’t put my book here with the pregnancy books. I did make this picture my big image on the top of my Facebook page, though. Then one of my mom’s friends saw that, didn’t realize the picture was featuring my book, and thought I put it up there to announce my girlfriend was pregnant. Then I got a frantic text message from my mom asking if my girlfriend was pregnant. I expect far more of that when I’m expecting.