“Not Another Author!” ~ The Truth Behind Book Signings

“Not Another Author!” ~ The Truth Behind Book Signings

I used to be among the 90% of Americans who despise telemarketers, or even just smarmy salesmen. When my husband and I would enter Sam’s Club to pick up supplies for our store, I would steer clear of the vendors hawking items “Like Seen on TV!”

Sometimes, pinned in between two aisles, I would smile and tell the sales personnel that I already had a knife set that could cut paper into matchsticks. Or my seventeen-month-old was already learning Pig Latin. Or we didn’t have television, so we didn’t need cable (which is actually true).

But over the past month and half since my novel’s release, my heart toward telemarketers changed.

I have discovered that at most book signings, the only way to sell books is to chase people down. If my table is placed behind a revolving case selling Royal Baby or Duck Dynasty paraphernalia, I have to pop out from behind the display like a Jack in the Box.

(Do not underestimate the power of surprise, people; it catches them off guard every time.)

But more often than not, I am placed at the very front of the store with a nice table and sign. New customers have no choice but to walk past me, and yet for some it’s like if they meet my eyes, I am going to steal their souls. So I have started a routine that forces them to at least . . . pause.

I start out with a cheery smile and the sentence, “Hi! I’m the debut author of The Outcast: a modern retelling of The Scarlet Letter set in an Old Order Mennonite community in Tennessee!”

If they nod once and turn away, then I let them go. No harm, no foul. However, if they smile and take one step in my direction, I whip out the ol’ picture of Grandma Charlotte, who was raised Mennonite, and tell the story about how she was baptized in a frozen pond when she was seventeen.

At this point, a few people are genuinely interested when I talk about how The Outcast is ministering to those who are no longer part of their Amish or Mennonite communities, and yet they don’t fully belong in our Englisher (non-Amish) world either.

Yesterday, a dear reader even told me that there used to be a young homeless woman who slept on the corner near her work. When she asked if the homeless woman would like to use her phone, she said that she had no one to call. When she asked if she could pray with her, the woman said that she didn’t believe it was right to pray out loud.

This is when the homeless young woman confided that she used to be Amish.

I got cold chills, pondering how someone once sheltered inside a community could now be living on the streets.

Then, shortly after this astounding encounter, a new customer entered the store. I was no longer than four seconds into my spiel when the lady held up a hand and said, “Don’t waste your time. I have water in my ears.”

Now, not quite sure she had water in her ears or not. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and all, but her curt remark stung. Then I thought of the poor sales people I have dismissed over the years as flippantly as that lady just dismissed me.

“Sign me up!” I thought. “I will buy your Ginsu knife and your Rosetta Stone DVDs because I want my daughter to know Greek before she even knows English; I will buy your lifetime supply of kimchi because now I really do believe that pickled cabbage is the hidden elixir of life.”

I looked down at my cell phone. I had five minutes left of my two-hour signing.

One more book, I thought. I can sell at least one more book.

I turned to my right and smiled. The lady looked at me from the corner of her eye, knowing that she’d been caught. I rattled off my sales pitch. She listened kindly and then thanked me and strode away as fast as her little sandals could go.

Disheartened, I folded up my cardboard sign and the frame of Grandma Charlotte’s picture. I recapped my pen and put the lid on my card box.

Then I heard someone say, “Can you sign this?”

What!?

I looked up and saw the smiling face of the cutest older woman. She held out a copy of my book and repeated her request.

So I opened my card box and took out my special gel pen that a precious couple, a few signings ago, gave to me when they saw the sharpie marker I was using to sign books.

I swallowed hard. “I’d love to,” I said.

As I handed my book back, it was all I could do not to give her a hug.