Storytellersunplugged

by Bill Lindblad

Some authors love to do signings; it’s a chance to get out there and meet the fans. If they don’t have many fans, or those fans aren’t local to the signing, it’s an opportunity to get new readers for their work. It’s also a chance to move a few extra copies of the latest book appearance.

At conventions, the organizers will often set up tables for the attending guests. They’ll schedule a time… half hour, hour, maybe even two hours on rare occasions… for a particular guest to be at those tables, and during that period the author will sign for fans who’ve brought their books from home, or for people who have bought the author’s work at the convention (often from the author themselves.)

This is all pretty straightforward stuff. What is not straightforward is the REST of it.

For the author and the fan, a signature is a simple method of bonding; it’s a token which reminds the reader of their contact with the author. For the bookseller, that signature is something else entirely. It’s an incentive.

A bookseller has one purpose: to sell books. They don’t care about any sentimentality except as it pertains to increasing sales. If you want to develop a pleasant relationship with your local bookseller, that’s a very important fact to keep in mind.

(I’m referring here to the larger non-specialty bookstores. If you want to bypass the sales requirement for developing a good relationship with a specialty or small bookseller, a round of drinks or a few cookies are usually enough, and they’ll often stand you to a similar return. We tend to be a friendly lot. But sales are slightly better than a drink or cookies, even for us.)

Here are some signing tips; use as you will.

1) Ask to sign the stock. If your signing was a bust, as so many of them are, don’t bypass the opportunity to sign every piece of available stock in the store. Hell, if you contributed to magazines which are on the rack, go get them and sign them as well. That one sale you made during the two hours you sat in the bookstore won’t make the bookseller happy, but if it’s followed up by sales of fifteen of the other twenty copies they purchased in anticipation of your visit, they’ll become happy. WHEN the books sell doesn’t much matter to the store. It’s whether they sell or not that matters. Most bookstores will ask you to sign their stock, but some will be hesitant; if they’re hesitant, they may not realize that you wrote that other book on the shelf under your pseudonym, or that you were a contributor to the anthology sitting nearby.

2) Table of contents. If you have a novel out, and a short story in an anthology, by all means sign both; and when you’re signing your anthology work, sign on either the title page or the table of contents. Many authors like to sign at their story, because that’s where their contribution to the book or magazine is. Fine; sign at the story if you wish. Especially if it has a large blank space where you can sign, it looks great. But far more important to the bookseller is a signature in a place where any casual perusal will notice it. That means the table of contents, or the title page. Some authors sign both places. This only makes the booksellers happier.

3) Undeclared signings. If you’re in a bookstore and they have some of your work, find the person in charge on the floor (often a manager or assistant manager; in some mall stores, it may merely be the senior full-timer) and offer to sign it. As it’s going to increase the likelihood that the books or magazines in question walk out the door, they’ll probably agree. And by asking, you’re getting face time with the staff, who will now “know” someone in the field. This becomes valuable as well, because booksellers are more likely to read and recommend work by people they know.

4) Additions. Harlan Coben used to include little non-specific phrases to all of his signed stock. “Thanks for reading this!” “To a discriminating reader.”; that sort of thing. P.N. Elrod doodles a little vampiric happy face. Rick Hautala has a skull with his signature. Carole Nelson Douglas includes a hand-drawn pawprint for her cat mysteries. Ron Goulart will often do full-color sketches. I’ve seen more stamp art than I can count, and in one notable case, a mystery author uses an embossed seal just like the one her protagonist uses in the course of her activities. About the only thing that doesn’t add to the salability is a date. Dating a signature is very often highly appreciated if the event is happening at a work’s release, or if you’re signing for a particular person. Outside of those times, you should probably ask the bookseller if they want it dated, unless that is a standard aspect of your signature.

This also applies to the signing in general. If you are confident enough in your subject to give a talk on it, do so. Many people like readings. Kinky Friedman often does a song or two; Mark Danielewski did his book tour with his sister, Poe, and she gave a small four-song concert before the signings. I knew one author of a vampire novel who spoke on vampire myths, quizzed the audience during the talk, and gave out candy or cheap prizes to those who got questions right. If you can be memorable in a good way, it will help present and future sales.

5) The convention walkthrough. As a person who deals primarily at conventions, I can’t emphasize this enough. A dealer appreciates nothing so much as an author or artist who schedules time toward the end of the convention to walk through the dealer’s room and sign all of the available stock. This can be a little tricky, because many fans want to purchase unsigned stock and get the author or artist to personalize it to them, so dealers generally don’t want the authors to do a walkthrough at the beginning of the convention. On the other hand, of the authors who do walkthroughs, many of them arrange to do it between 11-1 PM on Sunday, so that a bookseller will get overloaded trying to deal with multiple visitors. You want to make a dealer so happy that they remember you? Peruse the dealer’s room when you first get to the con, shortly after finding out your schedule, and arrange with the dealers to do a walkthrough shortly after your final arranged signing session. This is the sort of courtesy which will result in dealers recommending your books and buying drinks for you at the bar.

6) Publicity. There are two aspects to this. First is to utilize the “three card monty” approach; at your signing, get as many of your friends to come as possible, and have them act interested, to draw the attention of other people. This can be effective, but if you’re planning on doing this, be careful not to get too engrossed in conversation about anything other than your book or the writing process, and be careful to leave a number of pauses in the conversation. People are interested in those who appear to be popular, but many also hate to interrupt.

Second is to make the most of any outside publicity you may get. If you know that you’re getting a writeup in the local paper, or a spot mention on a radio or television show, or anything else of that nature, go around to your local bookstores the day before it happens, and tell the store owner, and sign all of your available stock. For some people, merely your mention will be enough to coax them into the purchase; for others, a signature will be enough; for others, it will take a combination of both. You’ll never observe those sales, but as long as they happen, they will benefit you.

7) Take the initiative. If you’d like to do a signing, don’t wait for stores to contact your publisher. Go to the stores within easy driving distance, and ask them yourself. Most stores love to have signings, they simply don’t realize who the local authors are. If you can arrange a signing with each new release, by all means do so.

Lastly, try not to be depressed, even if you discover you’ve sat there for two hours and sold no books, but have given directions to the bathroom five times. Your appearance there is worth more than you’ll know, because some of the people passing by will remember you in the future and look up your work, and others will pick up your signed stock after you leave. I’ve seen signings by Walter Mosely and Timothy Zahn which drew less than five people during the hours they were present… but whose signed books were sold out a week later. If it’s about the sales, and it is for the booksellers, that’s all that matters.