All Things Considered

Back on the Book Signing Trail

 

With the launch of The Delightful Undoing of Patricia Enid Guppy, I am back on the book signing trail. The first signing took place yesterday at Waterstone's in Bath - my favourite Waterstone's store (it used to be my local one). It was also the official launch day for the newly refurbished store, so it was quite an exciting day all round.

A few newbies to this whole writing business have said to me that they find the idea of book signings to be a bit frightening (ok, more than a bit... a huge lot). The thing is, these public events are the only time you actually get to meet your existing and potential readers. People tell you about what they're reading, what they like, what they don't like, that they're sick of vampires and so on... they ask questions and raise points that get you thinking. You don't get this sort of intel and feedback when you're sitting in front of a computer screen for hours on end, engulfed in an imaginary environment and cut off from the outside world.

The hardest part for me? No, it's not talking to complete strangers when you're a complete introvert, or sitting in one spot for hours on end until you get cramp in your bum. It's getting up at half past six in the morning. Being someone who is used to really coming alive at about midnight, which is around the time I get my best ideas and want to write too, adjusting to a new schedule for the weekend after spending the week staying up until five o'clock in the morning can be a tad difficult.

Anyway, despite having to confront the morning... shudder and cringe... I had a great time at yesterday's signing. There's a very vibrant atmosphere at the Bath store and I met some very interesting people. I also came away with a big pile of books to read, which is always a nice way to end any day.

Anyway, this is me below... practising my signing grin... wearing my new Guppy uniform. Pat Guppy's mug shot, which adorns the front of my new t-shirt, received many an admiring glance... as it should, as she is quite the beauty. The second photo is of my little helper, also proudly sporting his new gear as he handed out bookmarks and charmed the pants off unsuspecting book shoppers.

Doing the Facebook Fan-dango

I had my doubts about Facebook fan pages for quite a while. I started one ages ago for my favourite artist, Utamaro, and then realised that I couldn't do anything with it and closed it down... started a group instead, called Ukiyo-e Images of the Floating World, but I've not bothered much with that either. I was reluctant to set up a fan page to promote my books, as they were so sterile back then, and I'm not at all keen on the word 'fan'... writers have 'readers', not groupies flinging their knickers left, right and centre and going into a swoon (unless they are called Stephen King, and even then I'm not sure about the knicker-flinging). Recently, however, Facebook changed their fan pages to make them look more like individual profile pages, and I thought I'd check them out.

Trying not to give undue emphasis to the word 'fan' for a moment, the new and improved fan pages work more like professional profile pages. There's the wall for updates, user information and all the usual stuff, you can upload videos and pictures, add notes, and fiddle with it like an ordinary profile page. Basically, you can put all of your professional fluff in one place. I find it hard to believe that a company selling toasters or place mats is going to have fans, but they're just as welcome to make these 'fan' pages as anyone else, so the word seems to be a bit of an informal catch-all for pretty much every form of 'interested party', whether that means 'customer', 'mom', 'friend', or 'mad knicker-flinging groupie'.

With that in mind, I constructed my own 'fan' page... here. Not everyone uses Blogger or Wordpress, not everyone uses the book sites that are on the Internet, but let's face it, every man and his dog (and his dog's fleas) are on Facebook. These new fan pages aren't all that different from setting up a profile on any number of networking sites... the big difference is that your mom, sister, and probably your cat can join in on Facebook. It's all a bit of fun, and if someone just happens to stumble across your page and buy a book fifty years down the line, that's an added bonus.