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6 Things I Learned from my First Book Signing

As you might be aware, I had my first ever book signing event last weekend in Kingston, Ontario–the city where The Magician’s Curse takes place. The lady in the shop where I bought my rose asked me if I was nervous. I said without hesitation that I wasn’t. And I really wasn’t–I’ve worked in retail many times throughout my life, and selling my own book didn’t seem that different. Besides that, I feel at home in a book store. I lurve them.

But like most things, the first time we do something is usually a learning experience. Right? Here are the things I learned:

  1. Smile at people and don’t be afraid to take the initiative to speak to them first. Otherwise, chances are they’ll just pass you by.
  2. Chocolate Kisses™ may seem like a good idea to have on the same table as a romance novel, but make sure to stress the “chocolate” part when offering one to a man who’s standing beside his wife.
  3. Bring something to take the lint off of a black top hat.
  4. Do what you can to advertise ahead of time. This is particularly difficult when you’re signing books in a store that’s a long way away from where you live: be inventive.
  5. Don’t do a book signing when there’s another major event in town that features a bunch of authors whose names are more popular than yours. (I’m looking at you, Kathy Reichs.)
  6. If you’re going to spend hours sitting beside a book written by an offspring of Stephen King, make sure it’s Joe Hill (particularly if your last name is Hill).

By the time this post goes live, I’ll be getting ready for my second ever book signing event. If you’re in the area of Belleville, Ontario today (October 8th, 2017), please stop by Chapters between noon and 3pm. And get a Kiss. A chocolate one.


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N is for … News

I got to thinking about time periods in fiction and how certain events, depending on how close to the story line they happen, can be a dead giveaway for when the story takes place. This can be tricky when writing a piece that takes place in the future. For instance George Orwell’s 1984 or Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey – both major works of art in literature, and yet now that we know better they tend to lose a miniscule amount of merit.

It can be even worse if the story takes place in the present, because what might be huge news today, unless it’s a major event, might be a non-issue in the future when your readers are reading it. How about this blast from the past: The L.A. Times announces McDonald’s big news! Read all about it!

My novel takes place in about the present – meaning I don’t really know. In trying to get the days of the week straight with the date, I put it about two years ago, but then again, I’m not sure anyone will really notice but me. But it’s difficult not to put some kind of time frame on a story. My characters obviously won’t be going to a Michael Jackson concert, nor will they be taking the next shuttle to the moon. These kinds of events place my story in the approximate now. They do, however, go to see Aerosmith, unless I write that scene out in the edits. What if, by the time my novel is published Aerosmith stops touring altogether? This will stick my novel in the past, whether I like it or not.

News can also be extremely inspiring, and sometimes it’s tempting to want to write current events into a story. It can even creep in when you’re least expecting it, in my experience anyway. How? Because some point in time everything is news, and there’s someone out there who is bound to remember it AS news, and by that I mean they’re going to remember when it happened.

Unless your story is fantasy–even more so than Lord of the Rings, which was based on World War II–there’s no getting around a time frame in the real world. It’s a tricky thing.

Illustrative fiction is this way –> http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/n-is-for-nexus/