Book Signings and Author Events

As I was going through the pre-release promotions, one of the most important things I was trying to do was set up talks at bookstores and libraries.  I had had such good luck in my early publishing days when I offered to do signings in Nebraska that I figured it would be like this almost every time; at least when I had a big story.  Nebraska bookstores opened their doors wide to me, and I had lines going out the door of people wanting the book.  It turns out this would not be representative of all of them.

First, my premier book was about something that deeply affected Nebraskans, and I had a personal, family connection to the story.  (It was about Caril Fugate and the Starkweather murders.)  Also, people who had known me years before came out to see me because they hadn't seen me in more than 10 years.  It made everything a much bigger deal.  But now they're used to me there; and people in other parts of the country don't know me at all.  I thought that having a person who had a direct connection to the Capones would help, but for some reason it hasn't.  In fact, San Francisco bookstores, which always have loads of guest authors, haven't even responded to me.  Part of that is because of their prejudice against independent authors, (even though they pretend to be all about independent artists,) but they're also afraid that they're not going to get enough customers to justify the event.  Even in Chicago they turned me down, and apparently for the same reasons.

Some of the Nebraska bookstores are having me back out of loyalty, and because the Harts will be coming with me.  First on the list are A Novel Idea and the Bookworm, two places that have been very good to me over the years, and for whom I will be eternally grateful.  I also had an event at the Burbank Central Library, apparently the last one they will be having as they recently were placed under the arm of the Los Angeles Public Library system, which doesn't care for independent authors.

I shouldn't be too disappointed, though.  As I implied, after my initial success, the signings I've had since have been mostly empty rooms, or occasionally just a gathering of a few friends.  Ultimately, promotions online and social media are more effective.  However, I did stumble upon a better way to have events; and this one came from one of the Hart family members.

I've known for a while that it's all about going after the niches, but I hadn't really pursued this logic when it came to giving talks.  And there's no better niche than specific departments within universities.  When I was invited to speak at the University of Utah, Corey Hart and I gave a presentation to the Italian-American studies department.  This meant that not only would the university tell people who were already interested in the topic, and not only was it a good place to have an event at which we could invite people from all over town, but there would be students who either had to go, or got extra credit for going.  It was almost literally a captive audience.  Once there, I was able to win them over with the story.  There were about 50 people at the event, and almost every one of them ordered a book.  Many of them have also linked up with me on social media.

So I've come to appreciate universities for non-fiction books.  There are a few other concepts I might try, like organizations that study the specific subject.  I'll be talking to Civil War roundtables about The American Game, and local "Sons of Italy" organizations about Two Gun Hart.