Table of Contents

How to navigate this blog

As chapters are published weekly be sure to search for any unread chapters in the list before reading the current post. Feel free to add questions or comments regarding what you have read.

I appreciate your support with this project.







Saturday, September 29, 2012

Book Signings and Such

Writing a book is, for me, the easy part. Marketing, on the other hand, is really tough. There is just something about sitting down, in some coffee shop or bookstore, behind a table with a dark green tablecloth with my 'wares' out for all to see that just is not me.

Today was a good example. I had a book signing event at a charming local tea and coffee shop, during which, for the better part of two hours I sat and smiled at the patrons as they came and went. I tried not to look as though I was some sort of geek with books, who was in the way of their having a good cup. Now I admit, the event was something of a success, but nothing compared to the sort of success that I've enjoyed at book clubs. Part of the success at book clubs is that the people who come to the club sort of know what they're getting, and they LIKE books.

But the sad reality is that, much like anything that you try to 'market' (and how I detest that term), you need to convince the numerous potential buyers out there, that you have something to provide them to fill a need that they don't even know they have. This is what good salespeople know. And I am not now, nor have I ever been, much of a salesman.

I am a story-teller at heart, and a pretty good one. I can relate to Scheherazade, and her ability to forestall her own execution for 1001 Nights, by telling the sultan a story each evening, with but a promise of more the next night. This is doing what I love, and has little, if anything to do with 'marketing.'

As a busy physician by day, I often get asked, when people find out that I've written three books, "where do you find the time?" I know it seems a bit silly, but even the little bit of time spent in the evenings devoted to writing, I regard as my own 1001 Arabian Nights.

On a more pedestrian note, October 2nd marks the release date for Coaptation, The Book of Drachma, Part Two. That means that you will be able to buy my second book from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc. And I should point out that my first book, Laminar Flow, is now available on Kindle directly from Amazon.

Good Reading, my friends!

2 comments:

  1. Writing is hard enough for me, I can only imagine the horror that goes into marketing.

    You know me well enough to know how I feel about so-called authors working as their own marketers, more interested in their bottom line than actually crafting fine literature. As always, I'm glad to count you among the diminishing ranks of the writing purists.

    Seriously though, where do you find the time?

    ReplyDelete
  2. When you are forestalling your own execution, somehow you do find the time...
    Actually, though, there is some truth in that. Having been through heart surgery (1999), and having to take Coumadin (rat poison) for the rest of my life as a consequence; and then, last year being diagnosed with prostate cancer... Well, you get the picture.

    ReplyDelete