First Book Signing Recap

Before I give the details, let me first say that I did try to arrange a book signing at my favorite independent book store, The Book Loft, in Columbus, Ohio, but they never got back to me.

Anyway, I’ll exlain the process because I’m sure a few people are interested in doing the same sort of thing for their own books. So, for my very first book signing ever, I made arrangements to appear at a local author ‘event’ at Barnes & Noble on the Ohio State University campus. I contacted Barnes & Noble a few months ago and they mentioned the event and asked if I was interested if they do go ahead with the event that they were still considering. I spoke with them via email and let them know I was interested, but they never wrote me back and let me know that they were going ahead with the event. So, a week before I got a hold of them and asked about it and they said they were still expecting me to come, which was a surprise to me.

Considering this Barnes & Noble was on the Ohio State campus where I graduated and wrote for the student paper and also the Columbus Dispatch, I thought I would be able to get some sort of promotion in either paper, but there just wasn’t time to set anything up (and I did try). The event was only listed on their Website two days before and that was all the promotion it got.

Considering my Peru Adventure Guide doesn’t get much walk by traffic, I only sold one book, which was actually to a friend that was meeting me afterwards for a drink. There was another author next to me who didn’t sell anything though, so it made me feel slightly better. The third author didn’t even show up.

I think I will try to stick to Independent stores from now on, as I imagine they put a bit more care into arranging their authors and drawing a crowd. Granted, I’ll probably have to write a “real” book to ever get the true experience of a book signing, and I’m working on it, but for now I’ll go ahead and put this one in the category of learning experiences.