I did my stint at Mostly Books in Tucson where I got to meet--in the flesh!--a real live Guppy(one of over two hundred members of an online subgroup of Sisters in Crime). Thanks for stopping by, Jackie!
So here was an instance where the bookstore did not have the books. What I usually do when I go to events, is carry a box of my books in the trunk of my car, just in case. I have heard these stories for a long time before I was published, how bookstores sometimes do not get in the copies of your books when you are doing a signing. But this time, our small car was loaded with so much stuff it just got forgotten. So as I accosted the customers as they came in (and as they looked over my collection of medieval weaponry) and I got them interested, I signed bookplates for them as they ordered the books. Another lesson learned.
That evening I sidled over to Clues Unlimited where I chatted with a couple of folks from the history department at the University of Arizona. (Small turn-outs change from persentations to chats. Easily done and sometimes more fun.)
And so our Arizona book tour comes to a close. It's a seven + hour drive back to southern California. What is a successful book tour? It can't be measured by the crowds or lack thereof. It is rather measured by the relationships one culls at the bookstore one visits. Talking with the guys who work in the stores and developing a report is the best kind of marketing. If the sales piople get a chance to know the book and author better, that gives them the tools they need to sell your book later. It's about accumulation. At least for us midlist guys.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it!
Guppy Jeri meets Guppy Jackie at Mostly Books.
Jeri sharing a fake laugh and fake conversation for the photo with University of Arizona staffer Cynthia. ("Welcome to Sherwood!")
Comments