The Ohioana Book Festival this weekend was my first big book event. I had previously attended smaller, local versions for just Cleveland authors at Loganberry Books and the Bay Village Library, and so I thought I knew what I was getting into?
Spoiler: I did not know what I was getting into.
I brought hand-sewing and my journal and my laptop to deal with downtime. I’d been told not to bring books, which made me panic about what, exactly, would be on my four feet of table? So I brought two copies of each of my books for display, and I rushed to OfficeMax to print out book marks and a sign with QR codes for the ebooks and a QR code for the audiobook and a little sign that said “Nebula Award Finalist”.
Well. I arrived to find my four feet of table covered in huge stacks of my books and quietly stashed my six copies back in my car. I had feared I would not have enough stuff to cover my table and found rather I had to be careful with my use of space!
I saw that the person next to me was Wendy Vogel, and I got excited, thinking “I know her!” But it turns out that was me confusing things – I know a Dawn Vogel and a Wendy Nikel. (I did ask, “Any relation to Dawn?” No. She was nice, though.)
For eight hours, I sat at that table, taking quick breaks for food and for a panel, each time rushing back hoping someone had taken a book in my absence, but afraid they wouldn’t take a book in my absence… and finding that no, no one took a book in my absence. 😛
I finished my hand-sewing. I did as much revision on Galactic Hellcats 2 as I had brain to. I doodled and filled pages in my journal. I designed a paper cut-out solo-flyer. I tried not to judge the guy behind me who was mansplaining all over the woman with a Penguin Random House series.
Mostly, I just tried to fight my fidgetty hate-to-sit-still self and be constantly ready to say hello and pleasantly chat and slip in my elevator pitches as people walked past me… and past me… and past me.
It felt like BEING a book, on the shelf. I saw people browse me, judge me by my “cover”.
Maybe it was worse. I could see the people who only stopped at tables with male authors. I could see people with Star Wars tattoos completely fail to see me, checking out the authors on either side of me but their eyes not so much gliding over but not even coming near me, when I knew, I just knew, a Star Wars fan would LOVE Galactic Hellcats!
Three people picked up The Gods Awoke, asked if it was about Greek or Roman gods, and put it down again when I said the pantheon was made-up.
I felt like a failure. Like I was back in junior high, hanging on the edge of the dance, waiting for someone, anyone, to pick me. I wanted to influence the browser, I wanted to convince them, but I couldn’t, any more than I could convince boys to want to date me.
Ultimately, taste is taste, and my books might not be for everyone. I have to accept that, even as I watch people gobbling up cozy mysteries and romances and non-fiction books all around me. Why no like the science fiction? Well, we knew we were outsiders, when we were kids, didn’t we? We knew SF wasn’t for everyone.
In the end, I signed 13 books, which means 13 people are now proud owners of a Marie Vibbert book, and The Book Loft in Columbus sold 13 books because I was there. That’s not nothing! It is, in fact, the most books I’ve ever signed at any event. I should have been stoked, but I think I had inflated my expectations from hearing Tales of Huge Sales at Book Fairs. My best day ever and I’m feeling like a failure? Am I doomed to be never satisfied?
For all I know, I sold more books than the people on either side of me. I certainly heard grumbles from the people I thought were doing so much better that they had not made up the cost of being there. For myself, I didn’t pay for my books, and I got a travel mileage reimbursement from giving a ride to a friend who was traveling on official business, so I started out even? Ish?
It’s far too easy to see what we didn’t achieve than what we did, and who knows, maybe someone will see my name again some day, in another book shop or library, and having glanced down the row of authors, think, “I recognize that name. I’ll take a look at that.”
