Business As Unusual

It is not all open vistas and poking around old seaports. I spent the morning calling bookstores down the coast trying to arrange more book signings. I dedicated an hour to putting in phone calls, leaving messages, and most discouraging disconnected numbers and a bookstore going out of business. So I rethink my plight. I have a small inventory of books, I am not in business of selling books in one location and I can take the books to any customer, anywhere. I am doing okay.

I am glad I am not a book store owner, but if I was one, I’d pick a niche catering to those authors who are new and have not sold more than 1000 books. A self-published author with a marketing plan would be welcomed. I’d name the store We Knew’em When.

For the book buyer I would offer the best of the up and coming writers who are not supported by a huge publisher. I’d have to weed out the poorly written book, the trash and the book with little hope of gaining a wide audience. Subject matters pertaining to raising roses in southern New England, and raising goats on organic eggs in Oregon are out. The idea of having a book store – well has no appeal to me. Weeding out the obscure topics and the grammatically haunted books would not be fun either.

Anyway, I polished off a third of the stores on my hit list and got one. My trend seems to one store out of nine I can get one interested in an event. I work hard at theis and of course have invested a great deal in getting the store to entertain the idea, so when I get a book store owner to talk to me, I feel honored.

This morning I spoke to a few hired hands, left a few more messages and spoke with the owner of Hard Bean Coffee and Booksellers, Gary Amoth in Annapolis, Maryland. No firm commitments, but this has potential. At least Gary let me know that he was about 30 pages into the book which is sitting in his den. I imagined a dark little place, cluttered with books more magnificent than mine, a good reading light and a comfortable stuffed chair. And somewhere on the stand next to the chair under the light is The Last Voyage of the Cosmic Muffin. It is a chick book Gary, so 30 pages is good progress.

This afternoon I visited Bank Square Book in Mystic, Connecticut.
Rode my bike into town; it was a nice little cruise of about five miles into town. I asked for Annie Philbrick, but she was not in. However Jane, one of the other owners was. Seems we are all set for Monday’s signing at 5 PM. I got one hour to stir it up.

I will spend Friday at the Corn Bug in Narragansett. And on Saturday before the band plays under the tent at the Seaport Campground, I’ll be selling my book to the RV campers. I have a poster up and my book is displayed at the cash register in the office.

I might not sell many books, but I don’t want it to be said that I did not try. Yes, I still have not set up on a street corner, but the Corn Bug comes close. It is on a corner and it is the distance of the width of the sidewalk away from the street. A couple of calls to area farmers markets proved fruitless (vegetabless?).