Getting Sentenced

I just got sentenced! I have a new expression in writing promotion--"getting sentenced." Getting sentenced means receiving a single sentence in a major publication as in "Jonathan Miller will be signing his book at Bookworks next week." Don't get me wrong, I love getting sentenced, it beats the alternative sentence of no words at all.

I got sentenced in a few months ago for my signing in Moriarty, New Mexico. I was surprised that some people drove over eighty miles, all the way from Santa Fe, just to see me and purchase a book. I won't drive twenty miles to go to a restaurant on a weeknight much less on a weekend. The people said when they heard I was nearby, they just had to come see me, they had no choice. I call that a mandatory sentence.

I've had been sentenced for a book signing a few times, and ended up with more sales than I expected. People just happened to be at a bookstore and then see me. They utter "I've heard of you," but can't remember where. They inevitably buy the book, saying something like "When I see somebody famous, I just have to buy the book out of habit." Is that a habitual sentence?

On the other hand, I once had a full page write up in a local magazine, a magazine with a circulation in the tens of thousands where the review said that I had written one of the best books of all time. I immediately hurried to amazon.com to see the number of sales. I calculated one maybe two. Assuming that 10,000 people had read the article, did that mean that 9,999 people required even more before spending a few bucks on a book. I'm not good enough, so I suppose that I received a probational sentence.

Still I do wish that it had been consecutive sentences...