Book Fair - Lessons Learned

Since I wrote my last post about going to participate as an exhibitor at the Ventura County Author Book Fair last Saturday, November 5, I thought I’d follow up with some observations.

 The Good Things

·      I sold seven books.

·      I gave away lots and lots of bookmarks.

·      Many people shared their stories of suicide and mental illness in their families when they came by my table, and I got to tell them about the Putting A Face On Suicide project when they admired Paul’s poster.

·      I was at a table at a good location in the room. It faced the center of the room, I felt sorry for the folks who sat at the room’s perimeter and had to face the wall.

·      I had a successful reading – I spoke about the book briefly, read the piece about comforting someone who is grieving, and I read five poems

·      I met some wonderful authors – one who works in oncology who told me a statistic I never knew, that many people who are diagnosed with cancer commit suicide. So she took a lot of my bookmarks to put in her healthcare facilities’ three offices.

·      I also met a poet who studied with Jack Grapes and someone else who recognized Ben and Marissa when she saw the wedding photo in my book. She said she had recently met them at a birthday dinner. It’s amazing what a small world it is.

·      Carol, my cousin who lives in Westlake – quite near the book fair venue – came and brought me lunch, a wonderful turkey, avocado, and cranberry sauce sandwich. We don’t see each other very often so it was a great treat to spend time with her. She also stayed at my table giving out bookmarks while I was reading. Unfortunately she couldn’t hear the reading from where she was in the room.

·      And I met Larken whom I knew virtually through our Facebook Putting a Face On Suicide Facebook site. She makes out the volunteer admin schedule every week. She wrote me a few weeks ago to tell me she got my book for her mother because of the suicide death of her brother just two months ago, and since she doesn’t live too far, she came over to meet me in person. We talked for a couple of hours and she kept telling people who came by how wonderful my book is – that she couldn’t put it down. It was like having my own personal fan club right there with me.  Now I feel like we have known each other forever.

·      Another plus of the day was that Bob dropped me off, helped bring in my stuff, and went to visit a couple of our friends in Santa Barbara while I was working. He returned right at closing time to help me pack up and then drove me home.  So we both had a good day.

A Few Minuses

·      The fee to exhibit was way too high. And since I signed up late – I didn’t know about it until the early bird discount was over – I had to pay even more although I did get a discount since I’m a member of GLAWS

·      Not enough people came through. It was advertised that 1000 folks or so would turn out, and a couple of the other authors and myself thought there couldn’t have been more than 300 the entire day. So I don’t think there was enough advertising, making me wonder what they used the exhibitor’s fee for.

·      Most of the people who came were budding writers who didn’t come to buy books – some even said they had no money with them. They came to pick the brains of the writer’s there.

·      A lot of the exhibitors were self-published. Maybe that’s why I did well. My book is so professional looking. It doesn’t have the self-published look.

·      A lot of the exhibitors were also selling their talents as instructors, as publicists, as writing coaches, as self-publishing gurus, as editors, so it really wasn’t an author’s event.

·      And for such a large fee we really didn’t get a lot in return. We had to bring our own tablecloth and easel and even buy our own water. I felt it would have looked a lot more professional if tablecloths were supplied and they all looked alike. Some folks didn’t even bother to cover their table and some had tablecloths that were so short everything under the table showed.

·      And I thought the worst part was that we had to honor 20 percent discount coupons they gave to people who bought tickets to any of the workshops. So on top of the high fee, I was out another $15 because of the coupon discounts. Supposedly the person with the most coupons got $25, but only one person could take advantage of that.

With all that said, I need to look long and hard about whether I’ll do this particular book fair event again. I might decide to only participate in the ones GLAWS, the Greater Los Angeles Writer’s Society, sponsors. GLAWS provides the tablecloths and its fee for being an exhibitor is much, much less.

But, a year can make a lot of difference. I’ll see how I’ll feel then.

Learning to compartmentalize

Someone on Twitter recently asked me what the hardest thing I had to do while writing my memoir. And I responded – keeping the tears from smearing the words on the page. Then, I had to concentrate on the writing and now on the marketing, leaving any emotions I have about Paul’s death outside the scope of my work. So, I have become a master of compartmentalization.

Now besides being a mother whose son died by suicide, I’m a survivor. I’m a strong woman. I’m an advocate for erasing the stigma of mental illness, of putting a face on suicide, of telling my story so others can know it’s possible to heal after the death of a child. 

Next Tuesday I have another radio interview where I’ll be asked to discuss Paul’s and my story – how can I get through that on the radio? The other parts of the interview won’t be as hard. But going through what we went through especially during his years with bipolar disorder will be gut wrenching. I hope I won't fall apart. And next Saturday I’ll be reading from and signing my books almost all day at Barnes and Noble in Long Beach. I’ll be on my feet and wearing a big smiley face most of the day. How do I do that?

The answer is being able to compartmentalize, and that may be no different from my thoughts about playacting one year after Paul died:

One Year

It’s a year, they say,

time to stop mourning for your dead son,

get on with your life.

Okay, I will, I reply.

Look – I work, I work out, I write, I travel,

I read, I go to movies, I make love, I eat out,

I enjoy the company of friends.

And – I nurture myself with new hairdos,

makeup, massages, and manicures.

After all, Paul took his own life a year ago

He didn’t take mine

At least not completely.

What they don’t know is

my life now is just playacting

meant to fool others as well as myself

into believing that I can move on

and begin to live my life again.

A book launch and signing - Part Three

Here’s the third installment of my blog about my book launch and signing.

Signing a Book  - What a Pleasure 

Part Three – Lessons Learned.

1. Book the venue early. I contacted the Pages  (http://www.pagesabookstore.com/) bookstore on February 2 and received an answer the very next day. I booked May 12 – four days after the book’s scheduled release – absolutely perfect timing.
2. Be prepared to do most of the publicity yourself – I used my Facebook and email network; the bookstore helped by posting it on its weekly newsletter with a nice blurb and links to my book cover and trailer.
3. Try to arrange for other publicity early. I asked both of my local newspapers way in advance to publish a story about the book. One published a great interview with me on the day of the event; the other just posted a brief notice on their weekly calendar of events. Even if someone says they’ll be glad to support your event, it doesn’t always happen as expected.
4. Send out lots of invitations – don’t worry about filling up the room with people in all the seats and standing around the perimeter. I created an invitation on Facebook, and I used the Punchbowl email invitation system (http://www.punchbowl.com/?gclid=CLTDmv6U8qgCFQcnbAodAjvGCA). I found it a lot classier than Evite. The invitations came in an envelop with “stamps.”
5. Since the time of the event was given as a range, people came and went throughout the evening. One person arrived an hour a head of time. And the last stragglers arrived after the store was ready to close. Also a lot of people didn’t know about the reading. Come to an agreement with the bookstore about what time the reading will take place and list the time on the invitation.
6. Don’t offer food – just a little wine and water. We had to bring most of the food back home, and I had to give it away. It was a huge waste of money.
7. Here are a couple of nice things to do: get someone to have people sign a guest book (my husband did that job), and ask someone to take photos (my daughter-in-law, Marissa, was the photographer). After the event Marissa presented me with a beautiful photo album and she posted photos on Facebook – to share with folks who couldn’t be there.
8. And I think this is the most important lesson. Have no expectations about your attendees. Some people who say they’ll be there, don’t show. And people you have do idea will attend will be there. Some of them will be people you’ve never met. 

And don't forget to enjoy yourself!

A book launch and signing - what's that?

Paul's Bench

I'm going to write about the book launch and signing of Leaving the Hall Light On in three parts: Preparation, The Actual Event, and Lessons Learned.


Part One: Preparation
I think the worst part of the preparation stage was waiting for the book signing to happen. I booked it for the first Thursday after the book's release at Pages, my local independent bookstore, several months in advance, and I started to stress right away. I always stress before speaking in public and always end up calming down right before I speak, so it’s really the waiting time that drives me to drink.

I also arranged for publicity in our local newspapers, "The Beach Reporter" and "Easy Reader." "The Beach Reporter" interview happened the Monday before the event and appeared on the day; "Easy Reader," though it got a review copy of my book, has yet to print something. Well, as I said to them in my email today, it’s never too late.

Then I sent out invitations. I created an event on Facebook and carefully selected people in my local area to invite. In all I got about forty yes RSVPs from the Facebook folks. I also sent out an electronic invitation by email. I chose the Punchbowl application – I think it’s a lot nicer than Evite. The invitation actually comes in an envelop that the invitee clicks to open. I got another forty or so yes responses as a result of that invitation. With that number of positive responses I started to stress even more. Plus my husband kept wondering where the small bookstore could put all those people. I didn't worry about that. I knew people would come and go – not everyone would be there at the same time. Also a woman I do Pilates with advised me to have no expectations about the number of attendees. She said I could have a huge crowd or no attendees at all. And I knew from my The Emerging Goddess reading experience, people who say they'll come don't, and people I don't expect to come do.

Next I had to plan the food. My wonderful facialist offered early on to host mini cupcakes, and I was delighted with that offer. To accompany those I decided to offer strawberries, mangos and cheese cubes; wine, and sparkling water. At my last reading we had way too much food, so I worried about how much to serve. It seemed like the crowd would be bigger this time, so I of course, the typical Jewish mother, didn’t want to run out.

Another hard part of the prep was deciding what part/parts of the book to read. I had read an article about book signings and readings a few months ago, and the advice was to read for no more than ten minutes. Otherwise the audience would start nodding off. So after a few tries I picked a short prose piece, purposely chosen not to reveal much of the dark nature of my story and to show how I started on my way to survival. I also decided to ask the other three main characters in the book, my husband, son, and daughter-in-law to each read a poem. I picked out their poems.  As the article advised, I printed out the excerpt and poems in large font on white paper so we wouldn't have fumble around reading  from the book. And as suggested I practiced my part three or four times.

Stay tuned for Part Two: The Actual Event

First booksigning - May 12, 2011

I have scheduled my first booksigning at a wonderful one-year-old independent bookstore in my hometown, Pages! 


I hope you'll attend. The venue is great and the refreshments hosted by Dinah Alcon will be delish!


To RSVP please call Pages at 310-318-0900 or go to my event page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=189497844418284 and click away.

Time	Thursday, May 12 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Location	Pages Bookstore 904 Manhattan Ave.
Created By	Lucky Press, LLC
More Info	310-318-0900 info@pagesabookstore.com (email) www.pagesabookstore.com (website)www.luckypress.com/madelinesharples.html (book information)

Recap of 2010 Events

Before I move on to 2011, I thought I'd recap some of our family's 2010. We sent this list along with our holiday cards.


January:

• Bob recovers from knee surgery
• Bob publishes Volume 1 of Family History – Bob's family story
• Bob’s brother Richard’s dies; Madeline and Bob travel to New York

February:

• Ben and Marissa announce intention to marry
• Madeline takes novel writing workshop at UCLA and begins first novel

March:

• Madeline begins blogging on Red Room, a writers website -http://www.redroom.com/member/madeline40

April:           

• Madeline retires from Northrop Grumman on April 30

May:

• Madeline has several poems published at Survivor Chronicles, unFold, and Poetsespresso
• Bob ends 14 years of consulting for TRW/Northrop Grumman on May 7
• Madeline and Bob begin five-week vacation with trip to Chicago, Washington, and New York City to see family and friend

June:

• Our five week vacation continues to London, cruise from South Hampton to Scandinavia and St. Petersburg with return through London and New York
• No work at Northrop for Bob upon return; he takes the summer off

July:

• Madeline gets publishing contract with Lucky Press LLC to publish her memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On, about Paul and how our family survived his death. The book will e released Mother’s Day 2011
• Madeline begins revising her draft manuscript
• Trip to Kentucky to view investment property

August:

•  Ben and Marissa marry in the garden of our home
•  Bob starts work at TASC/Ryan Associates
•  Madeline creates an author page on Facebook  - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Madeline-Sharples/145268628820134?ref=mf
•  Lucky Press creates a website for Madeline - http://www.LuckyPress.com/madelinesharples.html
•  Madeline begins tutoring a high school student in writing

September:

• The Great American Poetry Show Volume 2 that Madeline co-edits is published - http://greatamericanpoetryshow.com/

October:

• Pages bookstore hosts reading of Madeline and Paul Blieden’s book of photography and poems, The Emerging Goddess - www.theemerginggoddess.com/

November:

•  Madeline celebrates three year anniversary of her blog, Choices - http://madeline40.blogspot.com/  
• Madeline and Bob visit new great niece, Khloe, and rest of Denver family
• Bob has face surgery for basal cell carcinoma 

December:

• Bob publishes Volume 2 of Family History - Madeline's family story
• Madeline submits revised draft of her memoir to Lucky Press LLC
• Madeline and Bob vacation in Carmel