I think all authors are used to bookstore events where nobody comes, the kind of event where you sit in abject embarrassment at your little table while customers sidle past you trying to avoid making eye contact.
Yesterday’s event at Barnes & Noble was excellent, even though the Boulder Daily Camera article previewing it had the one tiny error of getting the time of the event wrong, so that people were arriving for my talk just exactly as the talk was ending. But still. The store was thronged with aspiring writers, and I had a dozen or so people at my talk, even as three other talks were going on simultaneously.
Now it’s true that I only sold one copy of one book, or at least only signed one copy of one book. But I personally carried the other copies of my books over to the Young Readers section and put them on the shelf MYSELF so that Barnes & Noble wouldn’t send them back to the publisher; the lovely man who is the store’s Community Relations manager said that I could, after I pleaded with him, “Don’t send them back!” (The usual horribly disappointing event ends with the bookstore staff packing up our books to return to the publisher before we’ve even left the store for the parking lot.) As I was heading out, a parent from one Boulder elementary school invited me to come to her school as part of their December book fair, also to be held at this same Barnes & Noble. Maybe I’ll sell ten books there. Or even twenty!
Mainly the morning was just plain fun. I like when I can do something that is just plain fun, ten minutes away from my house, AND sell at least one book AND get at least one other invitation to do something else that will be just plain fun. I call that a happy productive morning.
Yesterday’s event at Barnes & Noble was excellent, even though the Boulder Daily Camera article previewing it had the one tiny error of getting the time of the event wrong, so that people were arriving for my talk just exactly as the talk was ending. But still. The store was thronged with aspiring writers, and I had a dozen or so people at my talk, even as three other talks were going on simultaneously.
Now it’s true that I only sold one copy of one book, or at least only signed one copy of one book. But I personally carried the other copies of my books over to the Young Readers section and put them on the shelf MYSELF so that Barnes & Noble wouldn’t send them back to the publisher; the lovely man who is the store’s Community Relations manager said that I could, after I pleaded with him, “Don’t send them back!” (The usual horribly disappointing event ends with the bookstore staff packing up our books to return to the publisher before we’ve even left the store for the parking lot.) As I was heading out, a parent from one Boulder elementary school invited me to come to her school as part of their December book fair, also to be held at this same Barnes & Noble. Maybe I’ll sell ten books there. Or even twenty!
Mainly the morning was just plain fun. I like when I can do something that is just plain fun, ten minutes away from my house, AND sell at least one book AND get at least one other invitation to do something else that will be just plain fun. I call that a happy productive morning.
It is helpful to me as a writer and job seeker to observe how you do such a great job of keeping your chin up despite the ongoing struggle of promotion. Keep on keeping on, Claudia.
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