Snake Oil and Bookselling: Adventures in Book Events

“Hey buddy. C’mere. Wanna buy a mystery?”

Yes, it feels a little like that when, as an author, I’m set up with a little table in a bookstore with piles of my books. Sometimes I’m in the front of the store (better), but sometimes in the back (deadly). These kinds of gigs are murder whether you are a newbie author or a veteran, like me.

I used to do a lot more of them and perhaps it has been to my detriment that I’ve cut them out of my tour schedule these days. In the last few years, I preferred to choose venues where I offer more, such as a talk, a reading. I felt that these sorts of events would bring in more people.

They used to.

There was a library I went to once several years ago. A very nice library in a very well-off area. I planned this event with the librarian for a good long time. I even suggested that the library might wish to let any book club know, or, even better, if they had a mystery group to alert them, so I expected a decent turn-out.

I always like to arrive early to set up my show-and-tell items, my props. They’re always a big hit because most people don’t get a chance to handle a real broadsword or try on a knight’s helm. Once I was set up and ready to go, I waited. And waited. And waited some more. Nada. No one. And this was unusual back then. (Note: Foreshadowing; when an event happens that shows you what is to be the future.)

The librarian came in and was most distressed about it. I asked if she’d made an announcement in the library but she said that they don’t do public address announcements, but she did have her librarians mention it to those in the library. I imagined them wandering down between the stacks, whispering to those people browsing the shelves or sitting at tables, “Please come see the author talk. She’s so very desperate and alone.”

I think I was there about fifteen minutes past the time the event was supposed to start when two harried ladies showed up. They were surprised they had the room to themselves. Well, with two people (plus the librarian) I didn’t want to launch into my spiel, so I pulled up a chair and we sat and chatted. Yes, I got in a few of the points I was going to talk about, but mostly I let them ask all the questions they wanted about writing and the glamorous life of an author. Which they saw firsthand.

There was the time I traveled across the country to go to a bookstore and do an event and only three people showed up because (A) there was a big football game going on at the same time and (B) the bookstore owner had no idea that I  would have these weapons and what I was going to talk about and would have advertised it more (I made a note: When my publicist books these places, author should always explain what it is I do there).

And the many, many times, I sat at a table in a bookstore with a stack of books beside me. Of course, you can’t just sit there. You have to stand in front of the table with bookmarks in hand and accost poor bookstore patrons like a guy selling cheap watches on the boulevard. “Ya like mysteries? Take a bookmark. The foist one’s free.” I’d coax them to the table to look at the book. Some would spend the requisite time looking interested at the blurb inside the front cover before they couldn’t wait to get away, but some would actually be interested and buy the book. And it would only occur to them at the moment I ask if they would like me to sign it, that I’m the author.  There was once a woman so startled that she jerked back when she connected my picture in the back sleeve and then looked up at me. “You’re the author!”

“Yes I am,” I said with a grin.

“I’ve never met an author before.”

I was happy to be her first experience.

Sitting at a table in a bookstore means that you also become the information lady. “Where’s the bathroom?” “Where’s the military book section?” “What time do you close?” because they think I work there. And believe me, I do!

So despite the crowds that I used to get at my homebase bookstore at Vroman’s, despite the fact that I used to pack them in at library events, those are days now in the past. I have seen crowds thin to zero, despite my having 44 books in print, despite busting my tail to promote myself. Part of it is Covid. People won’t come out anymore to events. Part of it is an aging readership (most mysteries are read and written by older women. It’s tough to get younger people into the fold of writing them). And another part of it is. . . a mystery.

Over the years that I have been published I have seen changes and I try to swing with them, finding new ways to connect to readers. I have Skyped and now Zoomed. I have blogged, and then moved to social media, then moved out of social media and am blogging again…as you might have noticed while you read this blogpost. I do mailers to an extended list of libraries because libraries are a solid sale and ka-ching if you market to a big library system that will order copies for each of their branches. This list now consists of 600 libraries, a constantly changing list of indie bookstores, and now my list of local readers to whom I used to send out invitations for my book launches. Because I won’t be doing book launches per se anymore either. Changing again with the wind, I have decided that I will concentrate on my newsletter communication to my current readers, that I will continue to pick out 30 libraries to send special packages to in order to promote the upcoming release of the next book (that include promotional materials from deerstalker hats or jester hats depending on the series, bookmarks, book bags, and sometimes mousepads); that I will do more Amazon and Bookbub ads, get a Netgalley account so I can upload the book to reviewers, and continue with my LibraryThing (a kinder, gentler version of Goodreads) Early Reviewers giveaways. I will keep on asking book clubs if they want an in-person visit from an author, or even a Zoom one for places farther away. I will go where invited whether it is a luncheon as their speaker, or to a library for an event, or to the LA Times Festival of Books at the LA Sisters in Crime booth next April 2026. I even have a BUY the Book From Me link now on my website for signed and embossed books (see the image below of my personal embossing on the title page)

This sounds far less stressful for me and less stressful to the venues. I hope I’ll be seeing some of you. I cherish the time I can spend with people of all ages to talk about books and reading. It doesn’t seem to matter who you are or what your experience. People who read fiction are a special bunch. They know the magic of a book, and it’s a grand thing to spend time with them.