Book signing Recap One

I heard a story once about Stephen King who, while at a booking signing, signed until his fingers started to bleed, then the fans wanted some of his blood. May be an urban legend, I don't know. I can't imagine how much signing it would take to make your fingers bleed. Anyway, no matter, my point is that last night at my signing, my fingers were in no danger of bleeding. But I was not lonely. Kathleen dropped by and spoke to me for a while. She had emailed me before and it was very nice to meet her in person. And Christine, God love her cotton socks, came by with her little guy and must have been there a half an hour, telling those few people that didn't walk around the long way to avoid my table altogether, or who did not avert their eyes as they passed, that my book was great.

There was the guy who stopped to look at my book but told me he only reads comic books (he did say that he might buy it if it was on tape or CD so Janet Russell from Rattling Books...think about it), an author who had a book out a few years ago and wanted to tell me how she cannot get published anymore (very encouraging) and the publisher who wanted to tell me about the upcoming books from his company. There were other nice people as well, and I enjoyed talking with them. But, I have been on the other side of that table and I know how you feel bad if you slow down to look at the book or even, God forbid pick it up and read the blurb, then don't buy one. You feel like you perhaps let the writer down. Well, you know what I found out? That is not true. I was grateful to every one who picked up the book or asked me about it, even if they did not buy it. It means they were interested or intrigued and they may very well ponder it and pick it up later, maybe mention it to a friend they think might like the book.

I got to people watch, something which I don't do much usually. I found out that about 99% of the people in the Village Mall, at least the ones in my line of sight, go to the Dollarama store. It was rare to see someone walking around without a Dollarama bag in his/her hands. The other 1% go downstairs to the food court and most of them take out Subs, I noticed.

So, I have more signing coming up and there may be more foot traffic for those and there might be more people interested in the book but there might not be. So, will I do it again? Absolutely! I said that if I sold just one book, it would be worth and it was worth it. Even if I had sold zero books, I still got to talk to people about my book. And the whole time, even as I was twiddling my thumbs, I kept remembering that I was at a book signing. For my book. That I wrote and a publisher published. What a great way to spend an evening.