A Book Falls in the Forest

A book is made out of trees, right? Well, if you do a book signing in the forest, does anyone hear it? I am mixing metaphors, but you get the idea. I had a great signing yesterday, and a respectable turn-out, but I was hoping for a hundred people-- a veritable Cibola National Forest of people. I had a small grove of cottonwoods at best.

I did get more people to attend than a best selling author with a big book deal and a publicist. I just had this vision that all 5,000 of my Facebook friends, and 1066 of my LinkedIn friends would show up and there would be a line stretching down the Rio Grande all the way to El Paso.

Still, I have a feeling that there are some green shoots out coming out from the roots.

The Community Relations Manager could not have been nicer. Hopefully, we will be able to set up a signing for our Southwest Writers anthology project when it comes out in November.

There was a lovely couple who bought two books and asked me which order to read them. They also had one of my books already, which they asked me to sign. No, I didn't get a sale from that book, but it was a good feeling especially when the husband said "We'll tell all our friends about you."

After my presentation was over, I talked with an author who is doing a signing at the store in a few weeks. He was considerably older than me, but he was excited about seeing his first book in print. I asked him the title of his book, and wished him luck when I signed a copy of mine. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to bring more people than I did.

Someone was there from the administration of my alma mater and invited me to do a presentation at the school. I was flattered, but she didn't buy a book.

My mom and wife were both at the event as well. They are extremely supportive of me. They didn't buy books either.

All in all, it was a great event.

Yesterday, a book fell in the forest. People definitely heard it . . .