Showing posts with label book signings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book signings. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Launches and signings and readings, oh dear

Last night I had the official launch of my latest book, PRISONERS OF HOPE, and so begins the frenetic season of promoting a new book. It's short but busy, often with back to back events that consume much of my fall weekends. This is my seventeenth book, and that's a lot of weekends. Missed opportunities to cut the garden back, rake the leaves, take leisurely walks in the glorious fall trees, and even vacuum the extra dogs that have accumulated under the tables in my house.

The launch is always the highlight of this time. I am not very organized and have not developed a newsletter, mailchimp list, or even email groups to help me send out invitations, so it takes time but I try to send out invitations to all of my contacts who live in the Ottawa area. I book a venue, arrange a bookseller, order some food, and cross my fingers that people will come. To my delight, they always do, some new readers, some faithful ones of old, and of course, my long-suffering family. This starts the season off with a boost, because everyone is excited about the new arrival and effusive in their praise. Thanks so much to all you loyal friends and fans who come out to support us authors!


I hold on to this boost during the long weeks of readings and signings that follow. Some are well attended, often to my surprise and gratitude, but other times I am reading to a rapt audience of five, including bookstore or library staff. I recall being scheduled earlier in my career to do a conversational hour at a conference, and one person showed up. One hour is a long time sitting face to face with a stranger!

All writers have horror stories about the dreaded mall signing. Bookstores forget you're coming or only order five books, snowstorms turn the mall into a graveyard, a raucous children's event is running in the store next door, or, despite seventeen books, no one has heard of you but they love James Patterson. As if authors need more lessons in humility after dozens of rejection letters, brutal editing, nasty reviews...

Through it all, you smile gaily, trying to look inviting but not desperate as you watch people walk by the store. Do they make eye contact? Do they scan your table as they pass? Or do they detour around to enter the store from the other side? Do they look on the verge of murder themselves as they drag a couple of screaming children in tow? Do they go for the fiction table or the scented candles?

If you decide the signs look favourable, you embark on phase one. "Hello. Are you a mystery fan?" or some such. Some pretend not to hear you as they scurry past. Some give a curt no, some say yes, rather dubiously as if uneasy about what they're committing to. If they stop, you begin phase two. You explain who you are and give a one-floor elevator pitch about the books. If they are still standing there, you continue with more detail. My favourite point is when the person's eyes suddenly widen in surprise and they say "Oh wow, you're the author?"


Most people are too polite to turn you down outright. Once entrapped into conversation, they mumble appreciatively and look for a gracious exit strategy. Is the book available on Kindle? Is it in the library? I'll be back once I go to the bank. Sometimes, after engaging for five or ten minutes and reading the blurbs of each book, they smile, say good luck, and move on. I feel for all these people. They don't want a book, it wasn't in their plan for that day, and they made the mistake of saying yes. I always thank them for stopping by, hand them a bookmark, and wish them a great day.

There are also the people who approach your table with great purpose and enthusiasm, raising your hopes, only to ask where the washrooms are or whether you have the latest Harry Potter. You learn to smile at these. An honest mistake.

There is two groups of people that seasoned authors encounter all the time, however. One is the person who's bored, killing time, possibly waiting for a friend who's in the store. So they figure they'll chat with the author. They usually position themselves directly in front, blocking everyone else's access to the table. After a few minutes of conversation, it becomes clear they have no intention of buying a book but merely want to talk. About their experience in the book business, about their grandchildren, whatever. Meanwhile potential readers are passing by, sometimes peeking around the talker to try to see the books.

At every signing, it seems, there is also the customer who isn't interested in your book but wants to tell you about the book they have written, or plan to write, or want to write. There are variations on this, but they usually want book advice such as where to get their book published. Curiously, I have found these are almost always middle-aged men who don't read fiction (often proclaimed with pride). They can explain their non-fiction book for hours, as others drift by, pause to peek, and go on their way.


Both these types of customers are difficult to deter, often standing by patiently if you interrupt them to address another reader and then resuming when that reader has left. Neither of them end up buying a book.
My last book signing at the wonderful Aunt Agatha's.
Why do we keep doing mall signings, you ask? Well, first of all, the connection to the booksellers, particularly the indies, is key. They are book lovers and readers themselves, and their belief in you means a lot. They are the ones who stock the book and recommend it if they like it (and you). They all have horror stories themselves about difficult or entitled authors, and believe me, they get their revenge.

But the signings are always redeemed by the customers who listen to the five-floor elevator pitch, ask some questions, say it sounds interesting and take the risk. Building readership one by one seems to be how the business works in the absence of a publisher with a big promotional budget. The signings are redeemed even more by the customer who comes up to the table with a big smile and exclaims "I love your books, I've read them all! I could hardly wait for the next one! And I want one for my friend's birthday too."

That is music to an author's ears. It's why we write, after all.


Thursday, May 21, 2015

I Feel Your Pain...

I, Donis, get so many ideas for blog entries from my fellow Type M-ers. When they write about their writing influences, about being over-committed, on-line presence, plotting and characterization, conferences... Oh, I understand every word. I feel you pain, your worry, your love and longing, your satisfaction, in my bones. It's the joy of writing. I had difficulty deciding which theme to follow up on this week, but when I read Rick's post of May 12 (Ah, the Writer's Life for Me), I was immediately reminded of a post I did many years ago about what really runs through an author's head when she's doing a book signing. I would bet that there is not a published author living who has not had at least one of these thoughts run through her head. Please indulge me, Dear Reader, as I repost an entry about an experience to which we can all relate.

What did you just say?

The Author is spending her afternoon in a bookstore, doing a signing. She is pulling out everything she has in her bag of tricks, trying to interest shoppers in her latest book.  She does not sit.  She has all kinds of things to give away, including candy, on the table.  She hands bookmarks and flyers to anyone who comes within ten feet of her table.  She smiles so much that her cheeks hurt.

She does not bother those who pass her table with their faces averted in order to avoid eye contact, but she engages with anyone who seems interested, and she talks about whatever they want to talk about, all the while trying gently to steer the conversation around to her book.She is tact itself.  She knows exactly what to say to the questions and comments that are directed at her again and again.  But what she says and what she is thinking bear little relation to one another.  Let’s listen in…

COMMENT 1: I don’t like mysteries.
THE AUTHOR SAID: What sort of thing do you like to read? OR Do you know someone who does like mysteries?
BUT SHE WAS THINKING: What do you mean you don’t like mysteries, you knucklehead?  Have you ever read one?  Do you know what a mystery is?  A good mystery is a psychological drama extraordinaire.  Even Hamlet is a mystery – did Uncle Claudius kill Daddy, or is Hamlet just nuts?

COMMENT 2 : I don’t read anything that doesn’t have a contemporary setting.  If it happened before I was born, it doesn’t interest me.
THE AUTHOR SAID: Sometimes you can learn a lot about what is happening today by reading about the past.
BUT SHE WAS THINKING: Come over here so I can slap you upside the head, whippersnapper.  Don’t you know that people in the past were exactly the same as they are today?  Don’t you know that people never learn, and the same things keep happening over and over again?  That those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it?  Of course you don’t, since you were either born yesterday or just fell off the turnip truck.

COMMENT 3:   I have a great idea for a novel.  If I tell it to you and you write it we can split the profits and become millionaires.
THE AUTHOR SAID:  I’m sorry, but I’m under contract to write X number of novels for the next 20 years and just don’t have time to ghost write.  But there are people who do that.  Look on the internet.
BUT SHE WAS THINKING: Are you too busy/handicapped/lazy /illiterate to do it yourself, or do you simply have no concept of reality?

COMMENT 4:  You’re the first real author I ever met.  I just finished my first novel.  Will you show it to your editor/edit it for me/recommend me to your agent or publisher?
THE AUTHOR SAID:  I’m sorry, but my agent/editor/publisher won’t allow me to read or recommend unpublished manuscripts in case one of my future stories has similar elements and we get sued for plagiarism. But I can give you some tips on how to get started.
BUT SHE WAS THINKING: No.  I’ve never seen you in my life.  How do I know you’re not a psychopath? Get away from me.

COMMENT 5: I’m not interested in your book.  I’ve never heard of you.
THE AUTHOR SAID: (she launches into a long tale about how years ago she bought a signed first edition of Outlander before anyone ever heard of Diana Gabaldon and now that book is worth at least $650.)
BUT SHE WAS THINKING: Actually, I’m going to be on the six o’clock news tonight after my arrest for assault.

(The author is just joshing.  I LOVE everybody who speaks to me during a signing and would never have an ungenerous thought about any of them.)