A Formula for Successful Book Signings

NOTE: This blog entry originally appeared on my publisher's website: http://bqbpublishing.com/

Being that I've only had one book published so far (I'm currently writing my second one), I don't exactly consider myself a seasoned author.

In fact, it was just six months ago that I was preparing for my very first book tour, scheduling book signings and festival events over the phone. I understood that such appearances were an important promotional tool - especially for a first time author who no one had ever heard of. Yet, I dreaded the idea of actually putting myself out in front of people and trying to sell them on my book.

As someone whose background is in systems development, I had no experience in marketing and sales. I was the guy who sat behind a desk in a small office, far away from the public, writing code and glaring endlessly into a computer monitor. The idea of laying out a 30 second spiel to total strangers, in hopes of nudging them into purchasing a copy of my book, seemed like a completely unnatural process.

That's why I was so surprised, after my second or third signing, when bookstore managers began to tell me that I had set an in-store record for the number of books sold at such events.

"Really?" I remember thinking to myself.

A quickly learned that selling between 20 and 30 copies of a book in a single appearance is actually quite rare. I was told by several employees and store owners that most authors sell fewer than five books at book signings.

"Why do you think that is?" I asked a store owner early on.

She told me that most authors just sit behind their book table and expect customers to walk over and ask them about their book. "Customers rarely do that," she said.

I had apparently stumbled upon a winning book-signing formula right out of the gate, and didn't even realize it. I've continued using that formula, fine-tuning it a bit, and it has led to sell-outs of my book at just about every event I've appeared at. One particular Barnes & Noble store, in fact, just recently asked me back for my fourth signing based on how well the sales have gone there.

What's nice is that it is actually a pretty simple formula. You just have to understand the psychology of potential readers of your book, and put forth a little effort to get those people interested in what you've written.

While I'm sure there are other winning strategies in making a book signing successful, here's the one that I use:

First of all, I never sit down behind the table where my books are. Unless I'm actually signing a copy of my book for someone, I'm always on my feet. I'm convinced that something as seemingly mundane as a table can act as a barrier between you and potential readers of your book. Maybe my mindset will change if I ever become popular enough that people are standing in line to meet me, but until that happens, I don't think it's a good idea to have barriers in the way.

Secondly, I bring four things with me to every event I attend: A promotional poster, an easel, promotional bookmarks, and signing pens.

The quality promotional poster that my publisher helped design features a picture of me, the cover of my book, and information on the book including a glowing review. The poster is about 2x3 feet in size, it's made of foam board so it doesn't bend, and it sits on the easel which I place behind the table where my books are.

Having this promotional tool helps catch people's attention when they're walking around the store. I'm also convinced that it lends me sense of legitimacy by building the impression that me being there in the store is a pretty big deal. 

As nice as it is to have a poster, however, a far more valuable promotional tool is having bookmarks to hand out to people. Bookmarks are great because they're essentially miniature billboards for my book that are easy to carry around with me. They include a picture of the cover of my book, a brief synopsis, and ordering information. I always have a few bookmarks on me, but author events are where they really come in handy.

I've found that the best way to engage a bookstore customer is to just walk up to them and offer them a bookmark. I don't just do this at the front of the store, next to my table. I also wander throughout the store and do it (as long as it's okay with the store manager). I'm not very selective in who I approach either. I've stopped trying to predict, by looking at someone, if they're the type of person who might enjoy my book. I tried this very early on, and found that it's a pointless exercise. Unless there's an issue with age-appropriateness, I don't discriminate.

"Would you like a bookmark to take with you today?" is what I usually ask people.

About 90% of the time, they'll say yes. Once I hand them the bookmark, I then explain to them that I'm a local author doing a book signing at the front of the store. I invite them to stop by my table before they leave, if the synopsis on the bookmark sounds intriguing to them.

Sometimes, they'll act intrigued right away. This opens the door for me to better introduce myself, find out what kind of books they like, and give them a brief rundown of what my book is about.

Other times, they'll just nod their heads and go on about their business. I don't take this as a rejection. Lots of times, such people will give the content on my bookmark a closer look, once they've found what it is they initially came to the store to buy. It's not uncommon for them to later walk up to me once they've had a chance to learn a little about my book, and want to find out more.

I was told early on by my publisher that it was important to have an answer to that all-important question that I would surely be asked more than any other: "What is your book about?"

Thus, I came up with a 30-second verbal teaser that I find myself enthusiastically reciting over and over again at each event as if I'm saying it for the very first time. I'm convinced that enthusiasm is important, because if I'm not excited about my book, how can I expect a potential reader to get excited about it?

Because my pitch seems to be an affective one, I'm happy to share it:

"From a Dead Sleep is the story of a man named Sean Coleman who lives in a small, rural, mountain town in Colorado. He's a security guard there, and he's also kind of the local screw-up (this often draws a chuckle from the person I'm talking to). He's a bit of a jerk, a bit of a drunk, and not everybody likes him. While he's out in the forest one day, Sean witnesses the suicide of a stranger. Because the man's body falls into a river and is swept away downstream, there's no evidence left behind of what happened. So, no one believes Sean's story, including the local law enforcement who he's had a bit of history with. So, Sean decides to take it upon himself to investigate who the man was, and why he did what he did. And in the process, he hopes to restore some credibility to himself in the eyes of the town. I doing so however, Sean begins to uncover secrets that people don't want out there, which leads to several very dangerous situations."

Lastly, I do my best to remain positive throughout the duration of the event. If someone doesn't want my bookmark and is kind of rude about it, I smile and thank them anyway. If someone picks up a copy of my book, browses it for a minute, and says, "I don't think so," I thank them and wish them a good day. If a distracted child collides with my display and sends it crashing to the floor (which has actually happened a number of times), I laugh it off, pretend not to notice the damage it caused, set it back up, and get back to greeting people.

Again, I'm sure there are other ways to conduct a successful book signing, but this formula has certainly worked for me, and I hope it's of some help to other authors who are getting ready to start their own book tours.

From a Dead Sleep's Kinship with Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad had already been on for a couple of seasons before I finally gave it a chance. My reluctance to sit down and start watching it was kind of odd considering that I had enjoyed actor Bryan Cranston's work on Malcom in the Middle, and also from a memorable role he played on an episode of the X-Files. The stark contrast between those two performances was so incredible and impressive that I recognized, even back then, that he was an amazing actor.

After the show began earning almost universal praise from critics and developed a cult following, I still resisted. The reason was because I was under the false impression that it glorified and even celebrated drug dealing. I wasn't interested in such a thing.

I've never been a big fan of stories where the bad guys are supposed to be the ones that viewers or readers root for. Flawed characters who are having trouble finding their way, or even antiheroes? Sure. But criminals with little or no moral conscience? Not so much.

It's the reason I don't like movies like Natural Born Killers and some of Quentin Tarantino's work. A lot of people interpret such stories as being edgy, and maybe in some cases they're right, but those types of offerings typically aren't for me.

One night, I was up late watching television and came upon an interview with actor Dean Norris. Norris was a familiar face to me. I recognized him from small parts in a number of action movies from the 80's and 90's, but I honestly had no idea he was part of Breaking Bad's cast until that very moment.

Norris discussed the rising popularity of Breaking Bad, and only then did I learn that the drug element of the plot-line was, in fact, not romanticized. Instead, the story largely revolved around the consequences of being involved in the drug business, even if the motivations for initially getting into it came from an act of desperation and moral introspection. It was a show about reaping what you sow, and I found the premise intriguing because it was the same theme I was employing in the novel I was writing at the time, From a Dead Sleep.

I began watching the first season of Breaking Bad on DVD and was immediately hooked. I found the show's writers to be brilliant, the story to be compelling, and the acting to be superb. And as I was pulled into the plot and became more familiar with the show's characters, I unexpectedly found myself identifying some uncanny similarities between the show and what I had already completed of my novel.

The meat of both stories took place along a rugged, sparsely-populated terrain. For Breaking Bad, it was the New Mexico desert. For From a Dead Sleep, it was the backwoods of the Colorado mountains.

Two of the main characters were brother-in-laws. One was an intellectual and the other was more of a brute.

The Breaking Bad character I found particularly interesting was the one portrayed by Dean Norris: DEA agent Hank Schrader. To me, Schrader was, in many ways, a composite of the two main characters of my book.

Like Police Chief Gary Lumbergh, he was a career-oriented law enforcement professional with a Type A personality, who took great pride in his work. He saw moral goodness in his commitment to protecting the public. He wasn't a large man in size (his wife was taller then him), but he was confident, steadfast, and when placed in a chaotic situation, became a reluctant warrior.

Like Sean Coleman, he was a gritty, physical character who took no guff from others - especially those who treated him as an inferior. He had an affection for beer. He was determined and relentless in his pursuit of unanswered questions, and he wasn't opposed to cracking a few heads to find them.

I also noticed several similarities between Breaking Bad's Walter White and From a Dead Sleep's Kyle Kimble. Both were morally compromised men living a double-life who, through reckless decisions and actions, put themselves into multiple levels of danger in which they found themselves at the mercy of treacherous people. They could only escape the clenches of these people by taking extraordinary, morally repugnant measures.

And truth be told, one of my original ideas for Kyle Kimble was for him to be suffering from terminal cancer. Sound familiar? I later elected to go in a different direction.

The feel of Breaking Bad was also comparable to what I was going for with From a Dead Sleep. In many ways, they're both like modern day Westerns, action-packed with characters who aren't black and white, but rather multiple shades of gray. It's an element that I think brings some realness to both stories.

With all of that being said, no one will mistake the two. From a Dead Sleep is a unique work that follows a deeply flawed man through his quest for the truth and personal redemption, in the wake of a mysterious, sobering event. It's filled with colorful characters with vastly different perspectives and motivations, navigating their way through a tangled web of secrets and complexities.

Still, I interpret the similarities between my novel and the show to be a good omen, because I consider Breaking Bad to be one of the greatest shows ever - a true classic. And something like that is great company to be in.

The Fruits of Low Expectations

The entire time I was working on the manuscript for my novel, From a Dead Sleep, I never once thought about the prospects of getting it published. I really didn't.

The truth is that there were times when I wasn't even convinced I would ever complete it. I wrote the majority of the book in what little spare time I had while working over 40 hours a week and helping my wife raise our young children. Thus, moving on to the publishing process was really the last thing on my mind.

For me, the act of writing a novel was primarily a personal challenge. It was something I could say I had done. It was a piece of work that I could one day hand to my kids and tell them something like, "Look at what your father wrote when you were young."

So when I finally finished the manuscript last summer, and felt quite good about the story I had created, the fruits of low expectations tasted particularly sweet. The possibility that a publisher might be interested in it suddenly entered my mind.

I began to actively research the publishing process, figuring out which publishers accepted unsolicited manuscripts, weighing whether or not I should seek out a literary agent, and even familiarizing myself with the process of self-publishing. What I learned was the same thing I'm sure many aspiring authors discover during their research: It's pretty tough to get your book published.

You come to realize that the overwhelming majority of publishers only accept manuscripts via agents, and that acquiring an agent can be nearly as hard as actually writing the book. You realize that independent publishers who do accept manuscripts directly from authors get swamped with the work of thousands of writers each year. It can take publishers up to a year to respond to you, even if it's just to let you know that they're not interested.

Needless to say, I wasn't feeling all that self-assured when I first started sending out my manuscript. I didn't let that get me down, however. I was in no hurry. I didn't require any assurances. I just told myself that if it happened, it happened... And if it didn't, it didn't. 

That's why the fruits of low expectations tasted sweet again when I heard back from BQB Publishing only about three weeks later, who let me know that they were interested in taking my book to print. It was so unexpected that I don't think the reality of it even sank in until I was actually talking to the owner of the company over the phone.

During that conversation, I remember one of the questions she asked me being, "What are your expectations for the success of the book?" I told her that quite frankly, I didn't have any expectations for it. And I really didn't. I planned to work hard in promoting it and doing everything I could to make it a success (which I'm doing now), but I had no grand notions of it becoming some runaway bestseller that took the world by storm. If it happens, it happens... And if it doesn't, it doesn't. 

Right now, only two months after the release of From a Dead Sleep, the fruits of low expectations that taste the sweetest are those of the people I know and have met, who have finished reading my book.

When a new author gets a book published, it's a safe bet that a good number of the initial purchases are from their friends and family. Thus, I wasn't surprised that those were the readers I heard back from first. And what I've found amusing is that a lot of these people clearly had pretty low expectations for the book, before opening it.

You see, prior to my announcement of the book, a good majority of my friends and family honestly had no idea I had been working on such a project. Many of them didn't even know that I had an interest in writing. Their only exposure to my written work was that of the comedic, Daly family Christmas letters I send out each year. Though those letters receive rave reviews, they've certainly never instilled confidence in anyone that I'm a serious writer. Thus, the news that I had put that skill to work in writing a book probably produced more than a few winces.

In fact, I know it did, because I've had a number of friends confide in me as much. Some of them have found the book so thoroughly enjoyable and impressive that they have, out of guilt, admitted to the low expectations they initially had, and have felt an urge to essentially apologize to me. Of course, no apologies are necessary. I get it. I wouldn't have taken myself seriously either.

That sort of reaction brings a smile to my face, because I know it's an honest critique. When I hear things like that, or when I hear people tell me that they finished my book in a single seating (it blows my mind how anyone can do that) or that they were up until four o'clock in the morning reading it, I know it's real.

And when someone I've never met reads the book and contacts me to tell me how it spoke to them, or that they related closely to one of the characters, that's an expectation I could have never have dreamed to have had.

I'm excited to see where my journey as an author will take me, but I'm also keeping my expectations in check. Because doing that makes the milestones all the more enjoyable.

Going Slightly Retro

The other day, I was telling someone about From A Dead Sleep, and I mentioned that the story takes place in the summer of 2001. She was fascinated by this, and asked if there was any historical significance to that time period in regard to the story.

The answer is yes, although it's more about my personal history than it is the plot of the book. I chose the era, in part, to help me more closely identify with the novel's protagonist, Sean Coleman.

Now, there really aren't all that many similarities between Coleman and myself, but there are some purposeful timeline parallels in relation to the very early 21st century. It was a time when I found myself at a bit of a crossroads. I wasn't sure if I was on the right path in life, and I really didn't even have a great sense of where I wanted to be. After graduating college and finding a decent job, I lived by myself for nearly five years in the same one-bedroom, basement apartment. Though I enjoyed the independence and lack of responsibility, time often moved by very slowly.

New relationships were hard to come by, and old friends were all moving away or getting married off. When you watch the people you know seemingly enter new, exciting chapters of their lives, while you feel as though you're stuck firmly in neutral, loneliness and monotony can really weigh you down. You think about ways - even silly ways - to get people to take notice of you, and see that you have something to offer - something beyond their expectations.

That's the picture I wanted to paint of Sean Coleman: A lonely man who feels as though life has passed him by. He's someone who yearns to redeem himself, but he can't find the will or the way to do it.

For Coleman, that struggle has embittered him and it slowly deteriorates his self-confidence. So, when a deadly mystery unfolds before his eyes, and no one believes his account of the event he witnessed, Sean finds himself at his own crossroads. He can either crawl back into the continuance of his life with his head held low, or he can build the strength to act beyond himself and push forward to get to the bottom of the mystery, searching for personal redemption along the way.

I also liked the idea of using the aforementioned time period, because I wanted to write a story that wasn't facilitated by today's technology. For example, in 2001, cellphones were very much around, but not everyone owned one. They also didn't come with the kind of goodies today's smartphones have (like GPS and Internet access). Cell coverage wasn't nearly as widespread back then either, especially in the mountains where much of the story takes place.

I wanted to throw several technological hurdles (along with non-technological ones) at the characters that wouldn't exist so much in the year 2013, while delivering a story that still takes place in the modern era. Placing the story before 9/11 also gave me some leeway to do some things I probably wouldn't have been able to pull off (with believability anyway) if I was writing it for the current day. I'll let you guess as to what that's all about.

On a less intensive note, readers can expect to find some humorous cultural references from the period as well, including that of the razor-close presidential election of 2000, and the mention of movies and television shows that were big at that time.

From A Dead Sleep is currently available for pre-order. Its release date is June 25th, 2013. Click here for details.

The Bit Players Have a Story to Tell As Well

Months ago, when I first heard from my publisher's acquisitions manager that there was interest in publishing From A Dead Sleep, she complimented me on taking the writer's risk of getting into the heads of multiple characters. She mentioned that such a thing wasn't an easy task.

Until that moment, I hadn't realized that I had taken a distinguishing approach in the development of my characters, but once I thought about it some more, I understood what she meant.

There are really three central characters in the book. I introduced and developed them in a way in which I believe the reader will feel as if they know them on a personal level. I felt compelled, however, not just to create an intimate understanding of those three, but also of several smaller characters whose contribution to the story, in some cases, is limited to a single chapter.

In saying that, I'm not talking about the inclusion of a ton of background information on these characters, but rather a detailing of the thoughts that are dancing through their minds in reaction to the events that they find themselves caught up in.

I think I subconsciously went that route because I've always been drawn to the types of stories that really delve into characters' consciences, and not just their personalities and the conflicts they face.

One of my favorite film directors is Terrence Malick. I've always marveled at his gift for verbalizing his characters' intimate thoughts to the viewing audience in a way that goes far beyond spoken dialogue and body language. As evidenced particularly in his masterpiece, The Thin Red Line, he doesn't limit this approach to the main characters, but also spreads it to the bit players.

I suppose that's the same concept I ran with in my book, in a literary sense that is. However, I don't presume to place myself in Malick's league.

What I'm confident about, now, is that I've offered a differentiating style in the development of my characters - one I believe readers will find both appealing and refreshing.