11.17.07

Advertisements for Myself

Posted in Mystery writing, Publishing at 1:52 am by Henry

In two weeks I’ll be performing the most dreaded task facing a writer with a new book — going out to bookstores and libraries and pitching the thing, feeling like a snake-oil salesman with no talent for selling. It’s not that I’m shy about standing and delivering in front of an audience of strangers — it’s the distinct possibility that there may be no audience at all.

That’s what happens when you’re a “midlist” author, not a best-selling novelist and buddy of Oprah. You’re lucky to draw half a dozen people and even luckier if three of them buy your book. More than once I’ve shown up to a wildly cheering throng of absolutely no one, shaken the hand of the bookstore clerk, and departed with my tail between my legs.

A writer of my acquaintance had the worst possible experience of this kind. A big chain bookstore in Seattle decided it just had to have him do an autographing, so his publisher at great expense flew him out from Chicago and put him up in a hotel. But the event was not very intelligently scheduled for kickoff time during a Seahawks home game at the nearby stadium, and so the bookstore was empty, except for a scruffy couple the writer described as “aging hippies.”

They were his entire audience.

But the show always goes on. For twenty minutes the writer pitched his book, reading selected passages and inviting questions afterward.

There were none.

“Well, thank you for coming,” the writer said. “I hope you enjoy the book.”

“We ain’t buying it,” one of the couple said.

This writer does not let go of a potential reader easily. “If I buy the book for you,” he said, “and autograph it, will you take it home and read it?”

“No.”

Now that is humiliation.

All of this is by way of encouraging you, if you reside in the Chicago area, to come see one of my three public appearances for Cache of Corpses. I’ll be showing a Keynote (the Mac equivalent of PowerPoint) presentation with photographs of Lake Superior and the Upper Peninsula, and my Lady Friend will be reading from the book:

Saturday, December 1, 2 p.m., Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore, 7419 W. Madison, Forest Park.

Monday, December 3, 7 p.m., Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington, Evanston.

Tuesday, December 4, 7 p.m., Barnes & Noble, Old Orchard Shopping Center, Skokie.

Mystery novels make great holiday gifts. Especially when they’re autographed. And most especially when they’re by me. Capisce?

Return to or visit Henry Kisor’s web site

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