My Very First Book Signing: The Prequel

This Saturday, 1-3 pm at Ukazoo Books in Towson, MD, I have a book signing for both The

Politician’s Pawn and Not So Human.

I’ve never done one of these before, so it’ll certainly be a learning experience.

I already shared my experience with someone else’s book signing… the one where he approached me with a pretentious “Hello. I’m an author.” Clearly, I won’t be taking that tack.

The problem is I’m not sure what tack is appropriate.

I know that, when I’m shopping, I hate to be bothered. Store clerks – and I’ve been one myself, so this isn’t a matter of being snobbish – can say “hello” and welcome me in, but anything more and I feel like they’re wasting my time with their sales pitches.

I can read the humongous signs in the windows proclaiming the buy-17-get-0.03%-off-a-purchase-less-than-$2 (BSGZOAPLTT) sale going on, thank them very much. I don’t need anyone pointing it out again. My contacts work just fine.

And when it comes to book buying in particular, I would much rather have room to look at the front cover, read the jacket description and flip the work open to make up my own mind.

People who gush about how absolutely wonderful their books are sound disingenuous. Of course they’re going to say their book rocks! They wrote it and they’re trying to make a sale.

So, again… not sure how I’m going to approach this.

I already know I’ll be situated in Ukazoo’s biggest room. So I’m thinking of simply asking people who walk in what their favorite genre is and letting them take the lead from there. If they want to chit-chat, awesome! If not, then I’ll leave them unaccosted.

Maybe I’ll even read one of my own books while they browse.

If anybody has a better suggestion, I’m all ears. Leave a note in the comments section!