I’m in Nebraska

I am currently in Nebraska, and appearing at several venues.  This last weekend I appeared at The Bookworm in Omaha, at the R Bar in Homer, where Two Gun worked, and in Sioux City, where Al had a branch of his operations and where Two Gun also operated.  This weekend I’ll be at A Novel Idea on Saturday, and the Walt Branch Library on Sunday.  I’ll also stick around one more week because the following Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I should hang out with her, and probably spend time with friends.

I was going to stay a whole month because I was going to fly into San Francisco to do a tour there.  However, though several bookstores told me they were interested in talking to me about appearing at their stores, not one ever got back to me about actually doing it.  Also, no news sources showed any interest, so it was quickly turning into a wasted trip.  At the same time, things have been heating up back in Burbank where I need to get a lot done, including Command Combat Battle Reports, which is a whole different story.

Author Events and Signings

As I was going through the pre-release promotions, one of the most important things I was trying to do was set up talks at bookstores and libraries.  I had had such good luck in my early publishing days when I offered to do signings in Nebraska that I figured it would be like this almost every time; at least when I had a big story.  Nebraska bookstores opened their doors wide to me, and I had lines going out the door of people wanting the book.  It turns out this would not be representative of all of them.

First, my premier book was about something that deeply affected Nebraskans, and I had a personal, family connection to the story.  (It was about Caril Fugate and the Starkweather murders.)  Also, people who had known me years before came out to see me because they hadn't seen me in more than 10 years.  It made everything a much bigger deal.  But now they're used to me there; and people in other parts of the country don't know me at all.  I thought that having a person who had a direct connection to the Capones would help, but for some reason it hasn't.  In fact, San Francisco bookstores, which always have loads of guest authors, haven't even responded to me.  Part of that is because of their prejudice against independent authors, (even though they pretend to be all about independent artists,) but they're also afraid that they're not going to get enough customers to justify the event.  Even in Chicago they turned me down, and apparently for the same reasons.

Some of the Nebraska bookstores are having me back out of loyalty, and because the Harts will be coming with me.  First on the list are A Novel Idea and the Bookworm, two places that have been very good to me over the years, and for whom I will be eternally grateful.  I also had an event at the Burbank Central Library, apparently the last one they will be having as they recently were placed under the arm of the Los Angeles Public Library system, which doesn't care for independent authors.

I shouldn't be too disappointed, though.  As I implied, after my initial success, the signings I've had since have been mostly empty rooms, or occasionally just a gathering of a few friends.  Ultimately, promotions online and social media are more effective.  However, I did stumble upon a better way to have events; and this one came from one of the Hart family members.

I've known for a while that it's all about going after the niches, but I hadn't really pursued this logic when it came to giving talks.  And there's no better niche than specific departments within universities.  When I was invited to speak at the University of Utah, Corey Hart and I gave a presentation to the Italian-American studies department.  This meant that not only would the university tell people who were already interested in the topic, and not only was it a good place to have an event at which we could invite people from all over town, but there would be students who either had to go, or got extra credit for going.  It was almost literally a captive audience.  Once there, I was able to win them over with the story.  There were about 50 people at the event, and almost every one of them ordered a book.  Many of them have also linked up with me on social media.

So I've come to appreciate universities for non-fiction books.  There are a few other concepts I might try, like organizations that study the specific subject.  I'll be talking to Civil War roundtables about The American Game, and local "Sons of Italy" organizations about Two Gun Hart.

Three Weeks Until Release

I missed blogging last week because I've been so swamped trying to get work done.  I even took time off my day job to try to do everything.

Part of what made me so busy was that I was promoting Relic Worlds as well, which is supposed to be more during the second half of the year, but there was an event last week where I wanted to present it.  Los Angeles's biggest game convention, Orccon, took place February 13-16.  I put on a miniatures game of Relic Worlds where I had a large table in the main room.  We had a banner at the table, books, and bookmarks to show it off.  Jamie (my girlfriend) and Rachel (a friend and soon-to-be neighbor) played the Dark Agents versus the pirates.  Artifacts were scattered around the table, as well as mundane items, traps, and monsters.  This was a way to show off the concept of the series to everyone who passed by, and gamers are a big part of our audience, so it seemed like a good fit.  I also put on a role playing game where the players got to be the pirates from the series, and their actions would affect the spinoff storyline about the pirates that I'm doing.

The effect of both of these were underwhelming.  The miniatures game would have worked better if I'd had the book trailer running, which I forgot to do.  Also, we need bigger settings to attract people's attention.  As for the role playing game, the area was run by a bunch of kids who screwed up where the game was to take place, so no one played.  It was just as well, though; only one person signed up, so that didn't really work out.

All that preparation took time away from setting up Two Gun Hart, which is going into the final stretch.  Now I'm putting everything into that.  I made some fixes to the hardcover and ordered some to take to the local bookstores.  They came in just last night.  I found a small problem in the formatting of the chapters.  It's not a big deal, so I will be taking these to the local bookstores, and I'm trying to make the fixes on Ingram Spark before anyone orders them.  (This has to be done quickly, as I made sell sheets and mailed them out, and paid $60 to have the book added to the Ingram Spark catalog.)

I will also be emailing bookstores this week to let them know about the book's availability.  However, I'm putting that off for a couple days while I get the book fixed on Ingram.  Right now the upload seems to be stuck, so hopefully that will get fixed soon here.  I still have several copies I need to send to bloggers, news outlets, and reviewers.  The time is getting very short for this, however.

I'm also setting up talks at bookstores and libraries.  Most places have been turning me down, saying that signings and appearances don't usually get many people.  I think they're being short-sighted in two ways.  First, just having a signing and appearance is an excuse for radio and newspaper promotions.  Even if no one comes to the signing, there's an excuse for marketing and free promotions.  Second, in this particular case you have a story related to something everyone's heard about, but with lots of new information.  True crime buffs and anyone familiar with Capone is going to want to see and especially interact with his nephew, and learn about this long-lost brother.  They should be seeing this as an exception, but most are not, at least in LA and, of all places, Chicago.

Corey Hart has set up a talk with the Sons of Italy in Salt Lake City.  I also have an appearance at the Burbank Library, and several in Nebraska.  It's amazing how Nebraskans seem to be a little smarter when it comes to these things, or at least less short-sighted.