When Mary Ann began helping me advertise the book signing at The Book Box, she called it my first signing. That took me by surprise, because I’ve done lots of book signings at conventions. I’d even signed books that I have brought to bookstores when I’d made consignment arrangements, but this was the first real ‘book signing’ event at a bookstore. One thing I’m not good at is calling up people on the phone and making these kinds of events happen.
It was a cosy setting in a comfortable store. I had my books and handouts spread out on a table next to the Christmas decorations and people came and we talked. Yes, I stood up and talked about my books, but the best part was being able to answer questions and connect with interesting people. I probably had five hours of fallback plans in my head for things to do, but most of those weren’t necessary. We talked about my books. We talked about how I come up with ideas. And we talked about their writing efforts. I had a slide show running on my iPad showing the real life scenes that worked their way into my novels, and I even showed them bits of the novel that is due to come out in April. I had fun. I hope they did as well. I even managed to sell quite a few books in the process–more books than there were people.
Now if I can just manage to make more of these events happen.