Walking into a bookstore and asking the manager to a. sell your book, and b. allow you to speak and/or sign books there is like walking in the door, reaching a hand into your chest cavity, ripping out your heart and handing it to someone. Please, take it. Really, I don't need it any longer. My heart is here in these pages.
Doing marketing yourself after self-publishing is even better. You have to do it yourself, and therefore, no one wants to talk to you. As if the beating bloody heart you just offered is diseased somehow. So no, thanks anyway. We'll wait until you're famous and have a marketing department pushing your book on us. Which we will then complain about too. Because we never get any say about what we sell. Duh.
So, it's hard.
What's gratifying is the emails, facebook posts, and yes, even phone calls from people telling you they finished the book and loved it. One friend took it on vacation to the British Virgin Islands and left it there in the lending bookcase at the pier. How cool is that?
And it really is wonderful to walk into a public library in, say, Farmington, and to be welcomed by a very nice librarian named, say, Hal Bright, who offers you a cozy corner to set up and a bottle of water and even joins in the talk when another dozen or so brave the monsoon rains and come to learn about your book. THAT's what keeps this writer's heart beating.
No comments:
Post a Comment