September 12, 2005
I had a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Troy, MI on Saturday. As these things go, I thought it went quite well. At least one of the reasons I thought so was because I tried a different method and it seemed to work.

I've never been completely passive at these things. I've always said hello to everyone and asked them if they liked mysteries as they went by. I've always been a bit afraid to leave my chair for fear people will come looking while I'm gone.

I did that for about 5 minutes, said, "To hell with it," and grabbed up a fistful of bookmarks and went walking around the store, offering people a free bookmark and when they took it, saying, "I'm Mark Terry and I'm a local author, and I'm signing copies of Dirty Deeds at the front of the store if you're interested." And moved on.

It worked. I got a lot of traffic, sold a few books, and probably expanded my influence past those I sold. I also felt more like I had done all I could, that I was taking a bit of control over the event, rather than being at the whims of the gods.

I think:

1. People tend to be shy about visiting the author, even if they notice.

2. Even though they announced me there several times over the overhead speaker, it didn't seem to make a difference. It wasn't until I actually said hello that people drifted over.

3. There's always some would-be writer at these things with questions about publication; in this case, 2 poets.

4. Yes, you do get people who chat and chat and then wander away.

5. One young lady took the book, said she'd think about it, then came by and dropped it off. She might pick it up later, who knows?

6. And I still think book signings are inefficient ways to sell books, but I can't think of a cost-effective, efficient way. Just a bunch of inefficient ways, and you hope by throwing enough seeds out there that something'll stick. Like most aspects of writing, it's a numbers game where you have to swing at a lot of pitches in order to hit some balls.

Now, I've got a library talk later this week. We'll see how that goes.

Best,
Mark Terry