Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Ying Yang kind of night

I'm a day late, but I was too tired to blog last night....

I had no time to do anything for these events because I was so preoccupied by family health issues. So, I headed out with trepidation in my heart, wondering if anyone was going to show up tonight. I was worried about Barnes and Noble event. They are letting me use their store to get my book and my name out. I wanted some respectable, not so embarrassing sales. Considering I didn't have any friends showing up to support me ('cause I didn't send out an email out to them on time), I was really worried.

At the last book signing, I sold 14 books in a little over an hour. But the fact of matter was, I only sold 1 book to a total stranger I met at the book signing. So, I crossed my fingers hoping to sell...five books. My time slot of 5:30pm to 6:30pm was also a bad one. Who gets off work, head for home thinking heck I'm going to stop by a bookstore? Not that many, especially on Tuesday nights. So, I was delighted when I sold four or five books in an hour. That's to perfect strangers! The store manager said it was really dead last night, but she had me sign all the remaining copies (I think she ordered 27 copies) to sell as author signed copies. I asked if I can come back to see if I can do better and she was really open to it. Now, I need to call to set that up with a person who is in charge of that.

So, with this kind of success (small steps), I had high hopes when I showed up for my book talk at the Newark Library scheduled for 7pm. Well, lo and behold, it was a total bomb because no one showed up for the talk. Not one. Yikes! I was disappointed, but I knew this could be a definite possibility. When I made my rounds at different libraries to see if I can schedule a book talk, I was told, several times, that they had a very low turn out (less than a handful) for even the past bestselling author talks. So, I left the library disappointed, but not crushed.

I packed up my things, got in my car and thought, I'm going back to my family. How can I complain about THIS wonderful life?

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