Behind the Author's Table

First, blog tour stuff. I have only three more stops, and they're spread out a little. Today I'm at Criminal Minds at Work (http://criminalmindsatwork.blogspot.com/). Friday I'll be at Precious Monsters (http://www.preciousmonsters.com/). The last stop on the tour isn't until June 5th, at Buried Under Books
(http://www.cncbooks.com/blog/). After that, I'll wrap things up here on June 11th.

As to the title here, I was at a Book Expo in Flint, MI, on Saturday, and while there wasn't a lot of book buying going on, I enjoyed meeting other authors. I'm a little isolated up here in the Great Michigan North, so I don't get to talk to writers in person all that often. It's great that we share experiences and can laugh at most of them.

One author suggested an anthology, BEHIND THE AUTHOR'S TABLE, where we tell what it's really like to be the "featured author" at a bookstore or other event. We answer questions like, "Where's the rest room?" or "Who wrote this book?" or (worse) "Is it any good?"

We smile when people turn up their noses and say, "I don't read fiction" or "I hate mysteries" or "I only like Janet Evanovitch." We gamely give away bookmarks and find them abandoned later in the rest room garbage can. We watch as the same person comes by three (or four or five) times and takes candy from the dish we've set out. (I once watched a guy fill his pockets with keychains I'd set out with a nice, big sign that said, "Please Take Only One").

Why do we do this? Because at least once, every time, someone comes by who gets it. That person might congratulate me on winning Best Mystery of 2012. He might comment that it takes a lot of work to write a book and then get it published. She might bring a friend over to meet me and say, "Peg writes mysteries that sound like something you'd like to read." And if the stars are aligned right and I've done everything I had on my list, someone might--it's possible--might actually buy a book.