Binkies and Briefcases

Or, When No One Shows Up for Your Event and You Spend All Night Talking With the Very Sweet Librarian

A few months ago I was invited to apply for the opportunity to be part of Local Authors Week at our library and they selected me out of a few dozen applicants to be one of the four adult-focused authors who would present. Last week was the big day.

Not gonna lie, I felt like kind of a big deal. I found out about the whole thing right around the time I met my goal of being published on HuffPo, Pee Alone was still one of the Top 10 Kindle books in our category, I won my trip to Bloggy Boot Camp, and I was invited to be part of another amazing, awesome, wonderful project. (More info on that last one coming soon.)   

I wrote a whole 40-minute speech and practiced it in front of my husband. I bought books in bulk to bring with me and sign. I took business cards. I brought notebooks from my childhood that contain the stories I used to sit in my room and write when other (normal) kids were playing outside. I dressed up and put on makeup. I even shaved my legs and everything, y’all.

I called the day before to ask how many people to expect.

Apparently, some of the other authors hosting events had been drawing decent crowds, 40 people or so, but there was no way to predict how many people would come to my event. “My” book (it’s an anthology, so I’m not the only author) was the best-selling book of the works represented. They saved my presentation for last and they put my name first in all of the media write-ups I saw.  All signs pointed to me being the headliner. 

It was my big break.

I posted the information on Facebook and my professional website, told our family and friends about the event, and we rearranged my husband’s work schedule so that he could be home with the kids on the night of my individual event and then again the next morning so that I could attend the group book signing with the other authors. 

Thursday night came.

I met Lora-Lynn, the sweetest librarian you could ever imagine, and she helped me set up my area. I spread out copies of the book, set business cards on tables, and read over my notes. Lora-Lynn had read my blog and talked with me a little about it. She brought me water and scurried off to make an announcement that there was a best-selling author in the house who would be speaking very shortly and could everyone interested please make their way over to me.  Then she sat with me while we waited.

and waited…

and waited…

No one came.

No. One. As in, not one single solitary person.

Well, that’s not true. One woman walked by, looked at the book, and decided not to stay. 

God bless Lora-Lynn, she stayed right there with me smiling and chatting with me about everything under the sun from our CSA memberships to how I became an author to my kids and their interests. She even asked me to give her a private reading of my chapter in I Just Want to Pee Alone and, even though she’s not a mom, she laughed out loud at my potty training woes and took a copy of the book home with her to finish.

My time ended and we cleaned up the tables, putting away the unsold books and the business cards that never had a chance to be distributed.

A man in a neck brace walked over and asked Lora-Lynn and me for our advice about how he could get his biography published so that he could slander the names of the doctors in our area who he felt were unprofessional in handling his care. 

At the end of that conversation, he felt that he could have a 125,000 word manuscript ready for press in about 3 months. So I guess we encouraged a new writer after all.

The next day (wearing the exact same outfit I wore the night before since no one but Lora-Lynn had seen it anyway and she promised she would act as she’d never seen it before in her life)  I joined some of my fellow local authors for a group signing of our books. It was fun to connect with men and women from my neighborhood who are on a similar path.

Very few people stopped by our tables, but one homeless woman coming in to get out of the rain spent a decent amount of time talking to me. When she said she was hungry I offered her fruit snacks and apologized because it was the only food I had in my purse.  She told me God was ashamed of me, gave me a hug, and left. That about summed up the whole experience.

I did sell one book to an older woman and a few people said they had heard of the book and that it sounded like something Nora Ephron would have written. Plus, of course, I met Lora-Lynn.

So I’m chalking Local Authors Week up to a win.