[Introduction: Francis Hamit, whose Kickstarter for Starmen: A Novel is close to funding, wrote this article as one of the Updates. He’s given File 770 permission to reprint it.]
By Francis Hamit: I’ve been thinking ahead about promoting this book and the changing landscape of publishing. It has been 30 years since my best-selling non-fiction book Virtual Reality and the Exploration of Cyberspace was published. 15,700 copies in the first run sold very quickly but it was already obsolete thanks to Tim Berners Lee. He created the World Wide Web and that changed everything. There was a lot of hype and disinformation. The same kind of media sensationalism that Artificial Intelligence suffers from now. The book took two-and-a-half years of research, interviews, conferences and fact checking. It was in print for 13 months. I literally did the last book signing three weeks later.
Fiction doesn’t have an expiration date and there are many places you can sign books other than bookstores but usually you are going to lose money on the deal. Sell a few copies or no copies if the stores has not promoted the event but it’s not really about the number of copies sold that day but the people you meet.
I once had a guy drive two and a half hours so he could meet me and get a signed copy of The Shenandoah Spy. Very gratifying but also slightly unnerving. He was a bit intense.
On that same book tour a teen-aged girl came for advice about Young Adult fiction. Why was it so bad she asked and why couldn’t she find stories that she could relate to? I suggested she should write those stories herself. How do I do that? she asked. A poor girl from a rural community with parents who did not read much less write themselves? With an indifferent school system?
You’ll find a way, I said, if you really want to be a writer. Just write. Get used to writing every day. Learn the mechanicals but don’t get trapped by the Puncuation Police. The kind of writing you want to do is not about the proper use of the semi-colon. It’s about telling stories. The First Million Words Are The Hardest. You will have to write that many before you attain any kind of mastery.
Those are the kind of conversations you will have at a book signing and showing a little kindness pays off years, even decades later. If they like you people are more likely to buy to buy your books.
As for the practical aspects of doing a good book signing here is my advice:
1. Dress for the gig: Wear business attire. Be clean and neat. . Get your hair cut or styled close to the event.
2. Be sober. Being in an altered state of consciousness will damage reputations. Not just yours, but your publisher or sponsor and that of the hosting entity (store, group, meeting, etc.)
3. Be Cheerful. No one cares if you are having a bad day. Keep that to yourself.
4. Sell the book. Get up when people approach the table you are at and greet them. Answer questions. Sign the book in front of them once they have bought it.
5. Stay put. Nothing irritates the staff more than an author who acts bored and wanders off to look at other books or decides to chat up an attractive sales person or staffer because no one is in the store.
6. Bring back-up stock and promotional supplies. Many a book signing has been undone because the shipment didn’t arrive on time. You can’t sell books if you don’t have them. Likewise a shipment of promotional bookmarks may get lost, misappropriated for a child’s craft project or thrown away.
7. Location is important. A table near the front of the store is preferred. Locations at the back or where people can’t see you or shared with other writers are not.
8. Do your own publicity. Most stores don’t have time. Send a nice professionally written release to all local media along with a copy of the book. Call the producers of local news and talk shows to see if you can be interviewed. You will probably be on a television news program for no more than four minutes. Bring your own make-up. Those lights are very bright. A simple base will do.
9. Enjoy yourself. Seriously. Have fun and enjoy a moment that most people never have. Be humble and grateful that you have this opportunity.
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We do a variety of in-person events and every word of this is true!
I’d add “don’t badmouth the organizers! Especially in their hearing which happened at a recent event.
Know where the bathrooms are because people will ask.
If there are other writers sharing your signing, introduce yourself and know what they write. Your book may not appeal to a potential reader but their book might. Pay it forwards, in other words.
Always Bring Swag to any event. Keep a box of bookmarks in your car.
Memorize your pitch for your individual books and your series. It’s new to the person you’re telling even if you’ve heard yourself saying it 1,000 times.
An event is marketing. It’s a chance to help potential readers remember you.
If you can’t learn how to chat up total strangers for hours at a time and remain cheerful, it might be better to stay home.
I remember well the times I’ve stumbled upon a book signing. If the author is looking forlorn I usually walk over and end up buying their book, even if it’s a genre I don’t usually read.
I met Turk Pipkin that way when he was promoting his golf novel Fast Greens at a DFW Barnes and Noble in the 1990s and nobody was going up to him. He was a very interesting person. A few years later he turned up on The Sopranos playing Janice Soprano’s narcoleptic evangelical ex-boyfriend.
My wife, Diana L. Paxson, was a little shy at her first book signings, so she took along her harp. She figured if nobody came to the table she could play and the crowd would assume she was another part of the entertainment.
She need not have worried, but she also plays the harp very well, and having it sitting there also attracts people to the table.