14 Comments
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Susan Oleksiw's avatar

I remember those days, and not happily. During a bookstore signing, the only person who stopped to talk was a young soldier just back from Desert Storm. There's nothing like feeling irrelevant.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

Mystery writer Parnell Hall had a funny song about doing a signing when Mary Higgins Clark was signing somewhere else in the mall.

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

Poor Goldenroad! I don’t know how things are now, but publishers used to encourage bookstores to invite local authors to stop in and sign copies of their new books before they were put on sale—signed copies couldn’t be returned to the publisher if they didn’t sell. That explained all the signed copies in remainder bins.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

Some bookstores do return signed copies. I've seen it happen.

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M.E. Proctor's avatar

Yes, and some charge the authors for them (mostly independently published books, beware!)

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Richard Donnelly's avatar

Ha! I've seen this too. It's demeaning. I'll give a talk, if you make me. But I'm not hand-selling a book to no one

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Lev Raphael's avatar

It's like selling pickles on the Lowe East Side in 1905 a friend once said.

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M.E. Proctor's avatar

That hurts... and makes me feel better about not doing these things before. I'm way too much of an introvert, lol.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

As an extrovert, a teacher and someone with acting experience, I need the energy of an audience, a live audience, which is also why I won't do Zoom events.

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Josh Spilker's avatar

lol wow

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Lev Raphael's avatar

Thanks.

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Nancy Hesting's avatar

Ouch!

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Liz Gauffreau's avatar

Ouch!!

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Sep 18
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Lev Raphael's avatar

LOL.

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