I had a lovely book signing last weekend. We had a wonderful turnout and I met a lot of great fans. I have another book signing coming up this weekend. I'm hoping that it will be as good as the last one. They aren't all as nice. As most authors can tell you, sometimes very few fans come, sometimes none at all. I was asked to do a signing in a town outside Philadelphia a few years ago. We drove for two hours to find a nearly empty store. The only people there were the employees and a few customers, none of whom had come for my signing. It turned out that there was a big Eagle's game that afternoon. The person who had invited me was new and hadn't known to look at the game schedule. Fortunately that kind of signing doesn't happen very often.
I have noticed something peculiar when at a not-as-well-attended event. I call it the author avoidance look. This is what happens when you are sitting at the store-supplied table, you look up, meet the curious eyes of a passing book store customer and they quickly look away. Or else they think you might make eye contact, and they are careful not to look at you at all. Oh, my gosh!, they are probably thinking. If I look at that author, she might think I'm interested in her book! The horror of it all! It's so predictable that it's actually kind of funny.
Despite the poorly attended events, author book signings are still worthwhile simply because of the events like the one last weekend. We always live in hope that we will have signings like that and are delighted when we actually do.
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