I love signing in Waterstone's Sutton, as you probably know. I get a table and chair and am left to get on with it, which suits me just fine. Other authors might like to be 'attended' to, but I find it makes me work even harder to secure a sale, especially in Sutton which is my home town. Outside of Sutton, though, I do liked to be looked after with the occasional coffee or 'How's it going?'. I think that's down to the unsureness of where you are if the town is alien to you.
Friday's Sutton signing was not a great success in terms of book sales, but it did enable me to chat with people who were on the same planet as me. I had great fun exchanging book reads with a lovely lady called Natalie. We'd read very similar books and had similar favourite authors. I think I made her late back to work from her lunch break. Sorry, Natalie!
Also, the signing gave me a chance to talk to some local primary school pupils, some of whom I had met on author visits to their schools. Others were kind enough to want me to visit their schools and will be talking to their teachers about having a free author talk. I had a great chat with Siobhan of St Mary's, Carshalton, who bought a book and was eager to get me to come in and talk to her fellow pupils.
And finally, a lady from Egmont Publishing, Linda, was drawn to my table by my book covers. Now that especially pleases me as I am self-published and self-published covers are usually criticised heavily. I rattled on relentlessly about what I do as a self-published author and my book sales. Also tried to pitch my latest book, Marvin's Curse, but failed miserably although she did go away with my card!
I think what I'm trying to get across with this post is that it's not all about book sales when doing a signing event. I'm the first to get hung up on how many books were sold, but there are so many other opportunities at events like this. I just need to keep reminding myself!!