“Go to at least five bookstores, and talk to the staff about doing a reading along with a signing for your new book.”
Back when I was teaching, this is just the kind of assignment I would give a student. There is nothing like a taste of your own medicine.
Fifteen years as an expat has taught me to expect nothing, to embrace obscurity. The slippery slope is to paint a picture of what might be possible “back home” - wishful thinking at its worst. There is no guarantee that anything is more possible there. There are no sure things, just the results we can lay our hands on, holding them as tight as our children, squeezing out every ounce of glory and satisfaction that we can. They are as rare as a year of thirteen moons.
A week ago, sitting at a long, festive table on a wine and food night, toasting and chewing on overcooked lamb with new friends, I let it slip that my book was coming out in September.
“You must do a reading!” They said.
It never entered my mind to even try to do this. Between the acres of agent rejections and the general idea that people read 140 characters now, not 140 pages (much less 300) I had surrendered to the hard truth - no matter how good the book is, how many years it was edited and refined, crushing that diamond just a bit harder, clarifying and burnishing and shining and compressing it until it could not go a millimeter further, and then calling it a day, drinking a glass of whiskey in the middle of the night in private celebration, announcing to my wife and children at breakfast that Papa on the Moon was really, really done now, that I would set a publish date and that was that.
So, here I am with a list of five bookstores and their addresses in my phone, navigating the newly familiar streets on my own and using GPS to find the tricky ones, on back alleys behind main streets, in dead-ends, in turn-arounds, walking in with a quiet face, asking if anyone speaks English, trying to crack a joke to lighten the nutty question at my lips, staring at them as I wonder if any of this makes sense, and then the fateful moment when I explain “what the book is about” in a handful of words, because that is how things happen in the real world, not a carefully written logline, or a blurb of 300 words or less, but in conversation, relating to the person in front of you, not some cookie-cutter pitch but an improvised variation each time.
Some of the bookstores are curious, some could care less. It is truly ironic to talk to someone that sells books that has no interest in literature, or any talk about it.
The afternoon unfolds, sweaty and half-full of promise. I end up walking five miles, head held high, going home with a pocket full of business cards and owners to talk with. We are never too old to do some homework.
Eeeek, that sounds so daunting! I, for one, can't wait to read it. I hope these booksellers are smart enough to know what they're looking at, and that you get lots of readings scheduled.
Eeeek, that sounds so daunting! I, for one, can't wait to read it. I hope these booksellers are smart enough to know what they're looking at, and that you get lots of readings scheduled.