My First Signing

I originally had my signing date set for a late weekend in April and as you probably know, that ended up changing. I was stoked until I realized that it was the same weekend as the Calgary Comic Expo. Now, I was not afraid. I unabashedly think I wrote a great novel. However, I also know that I am a completely unknown author at this point and that the Calgary Expo draws in Sci-Fi and Fantasy fans from all over the country. That would have been wonderful, except that they all would have been at the Expo, not hitting the local bookstores. So, I opted for a different Sunday, early in June, and they were kind enough to agree to the change. 

I spent the extra time making sure that I had a great setup for the day! I bought some black velvet and made a table cloth. I created a cross-stitch logo. I bought and painted crates that would match the colours on my book, picked up fairy lights and book holders to stand my book up with. I even ordered a large poster of my cover and had bookmarks created for it. The table was a bit smaller than I was hoping, but I made do. My husband kept me calm and we set up, deciding to only use one of the crates. We strung the lights simply over the top of the crate, behind the books and over to the books that were standing up.

I greeted nearly everybody personally that walked in. Anybody who looked over at me, I smiled at and most of them were asked if they wanted to hear about my book. Most agreed, and everybody that did seemed interested. Not everybody bought, of course. A few picked up the book eagerly only to put it down and wander off, and a few that were hesitant about taking a copy from me took that copy home with them in the end. What surprised me most was the gentleman who asked if my book was already a movie, and swore up and down that it needed to be made into one, based entirely on how evocative my cover was. 

I was so proud...

Unsurprisingly, I discovered that when I was standing up, a lot more adults were willing to come over and talk than when I was sitting down, while anyone younger than 18 seemed to find me less threatening more approachable when I was sitting down. About half seemed surprised to find out that I was actually the author, and that I was willing to sign their books while I was there.

The crew said that it was quieter than a regular Sunday. Despite that, they said that I seemed to get a lot of traffic at my table simply because I engaged with people, whether about my novel or not, and that I had a much nicer set up than some of the authors they'd had in. They took a few extra books at the end, making that the second store in the city of Calgary that carries my book physically (the other is Owl's Nest Bookstore) and I am super excited about it!

What do you think of my table? Did you like my set-up?