Remainders Weigh a Ton - Literally

Who knew that a sense of humor would be so helpful to an author having her sanity tested by the book-buying public? New Zealand's Wendyl Niessen was lucky to have such a strong one on the day that she received 1.2 tons of books - all the remaining copies of her Bitch and Famous, her 2007 memoir about "the glossy world of magazines and TV." As described in the New Zealand Herald:

So it was with some nonchalance I greeted the delivery guy on my path the other day and instructed him to simply deposit his load under the house. He looked at me in horror.

"I can't do that," he replied.

"Why not?" I said. "It's just up the path."

"Madam," he said, displaying an unusually courteous tone for these modern times. "It weighs 1.2 tonnes."

"I'm sorry," I replied hesitantly. "Nothing weighs 1.2 tonnes."

"Two pallets of books," he answered, before remembering to add a now rather weighted "madam.

I had just taken delivery of what was left of Bitch and Famous, the book I wrote last year. I was told it had sold well. My publisher said he had some copies left in the warehouse and would I like them at a very good price? It seemed like a good idea at the time.

As I hid inside my house and listened to the sound of hydraulic equipment unloading the pallets on to the street, my first thought was the desperate hope that my neighbour, who knows a bit about publishing, would not look out his window and realise that the aspiring author across the road was having to buy her own books. My next thought was to ring my husband and inform him that instead of going to the gym after work he might like to transfer 1.2 tonnes of books into the basement, quickly, and preferably before it rained.

Read the rest of the article to find out why Nissen ended up with so many copies of her book and what she did next.