Have Pen, Will Sign

When you write a book you lay yourself open to its handmaiden, book signings. In a dozen years of writing books I have suffered through, enjoyed, loved, hated, bounded through, stumbled through, signed and missigned books at any number and variety of bookstores in all parts of the country. I have signed anywhere from zero books to scores of them in one signing. I have signed them in Barnes and Nobles and Borders, and in the most unknown, struggling, and dusty bookstores in America. They are a trial and they are a joy. The joy is in the fact you meet a lot of nice bookstore people and on a good afternoon or evening actually sign a lot of books. The trial is when bookstore patrons stream past your desk, stare absently at you and your book, and nobody ever buys one.

In a big bookstore in Louisville one afternoon I signed upward of 45 books--a great day. The community relations person--what they call the always helpful bookstore employees who coordinate signings--thought so too.

"This has been a great signing," he said.

And I said, "What would you consider a really, really great signing," I asked.

"Well, he said, somewhat sheepishly, "recently we had Winona Judd in here with her book and 1,100 people showed up."

Jimmy Carter showed up In Dallas recently with his book of poetry and about 2,000 got in line. It makes me think that to get a really, really good turnout you need to be an ex-president, be famous or notorious, serve a term in prison before writing your book, be on TV regularly, or have Oprah endorse what you have written. It might also help if you wrote a bodice-ripper instead of a work of history.

At any rate, I have started doing signings for ONE MAN GREAT ENOUGH. The most successful one so far was at my high school reunion in Tucson, Arizona, two weekends ago. Since they knew me there somewhat and wondered how I ever managed to write a book, I sold out. I have had two other signings since, an evening in the Barnes & Noble on University Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas, where I didn't sell out but had a good time. They still have a pile of the books there, all pre-signed, if anybody is interested. And just this past weekend, November 3, I signed in the corner of a tent at the big Texas Book Festival. A few people managed to find us--I was signing with another Lincoln author, Orville Vernon Burton, who was there with his excellent book, THE AGE OF LINCOLN.

So it goes. In case anybody wants to know how I feel about it all, I say, "Have pen, will sign."