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Craft of Writing

Mary J. Breen

Be Ready For Your Book Signing

Book signings—so they say—are wonderful things. You get to promote yourself, promote your book, chat with your readers, and feel like A Big Important Writer for a few hours.

Well, not always.

So, before you get too excited by a bookstore's offer to organize a signing for you, here are a few questions I wish I'd had the foresight to ask the last time I did one:

What kind of advertising are you planning?

My recent signing was at a New Age bookstore. I guess they usually reach customers by telepathy since they'd done no advertising whatsoever. They assured me they'd meant to.

After I arrived, they scribbled my name on a scrap of lined paper and taped it to the bare wall near my head. This, I was told, was my “place.” Also at my “place” were a tiny table along with a cracked dining room chair about an inch higher than the table. There I was, all ready to promote my book on the importance of women's middle years, looking like an unwelcome visitor at kindergarten.

A good question, and one I had thought to ask beforehand. They said yes. It turned out they had two. Two. They'd meant to order more. I found a couple in the back of my car, thank God, but in the end, we had a surplus. Maybe this is why they'd chosen such a small table.

You’ll need to know what to wear. These folks in this store assured me it was usually toasty warm in their bookstore, but that day it was warmer outside in the November Ontario winds. I put my coat back on, and wished I hadn’t spent money on a nice new Book-Signing Outfit. I also put my oven-mitt-sized driving gloves on, concerned about how they would affect my image as well as my penmanship. I needn’t have worried.

Very important question. They told me Saturdays are always booming, and the lack of customers that day was because of the Santa Claus Parade. Problem was, the Parade didn’t start until five! During the two hours I was there, only twelve customers came in—I counted—and most were teenagers in search of incense and crystals. They didn’t even see me. No one stayed very long, probably because of the cold. Then, two women over forty arrived, and I thought: Great; here they come. Being a good, reticent Canadian, I couldn’t bring myself to call out, "Hi, come on over!" and they, being good, reticent Canadians, managed only shy smiles before they hurried past. Perhaps a tall, lonely woman scrunched behind a kid-sized table made them fear I was selling books about the perils of a second childhood. Anyway, just when I was feeling the misery of the wallflower, one woman turned and came back. I was so relieved I probably gushed, but she wasn’t at all interested in my book. She was selling progesterone cream. I have her card.

This, of course, is the plus of bookstore signings. Since I had nothing to do and I had to pace about to keep warm, I got to browse their shelves where I found books on numerology, astrology, dream analysis, witchcraft, UFOs, and the afterlife, as well as stress, reaching one's financial dreams, and getting along with everyone from your partner to your cat. None about getting along with your local writer. But they had some interesting books on Buddhism, so the signing was a profitable venture in the end. I bought two books.

After an hour and fifty minutes, I'd had it. I tore down their homemade sign, and packed away my special pen. I was already wearing my outdoor clothes. When I told the owners I was on my way, they were astonished.