Have you ever been to a reading where the audience is composed of the reader(s), the organiser (who pops out to take a call on her mobile phone and never comes back), people related to the reader(s) and some old guy with a dog who mistook it for some other event and now can't get out?
Read this article in The Atlantic from Anne Patchett (Bel Canto - absolutely brilliant slow burn book) and next time you see a poster in your local bookshop or library, make a point of going along.
3 comments:
Great article; thanks for sharing it!
I remember some years ago I was on a Yahoo discussion list that had several published authors on it; they told much the same story, of bookstore signings being simply a cup of coffee with the shop owner and a stint of autographing the shop's supply of their book.
Still, I wouldn't mind!
LOL
That's a good article, and it does give hope; if you keep at something for long enough, you just might get there.
Yes, I have been that lonely reader, dragging window-shopping Americans into the book shop to bump up the audience. Sigh.
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