Authors + Card tables + Books =

A.V. Walters

Traverse City Authors

You’ve been there—a book fair, or an author-signing event. The author sits, with a forced smile, trying to engage. Normal people, who otherwise might manage a smile or a nod, drop their eyes and rush by. They’re too polite to intend to reject, but the result is the same. They avoid eye contact.

We love books. They entertain and inform. They take us to places, internal and external, that we otherwise would never experience. They make us think. Storytelling is probably the true oldest profession. It may be the real difference between man and the other animals. Forget tools—animals use tools.

But writing is very much an internal process. There’s not much to see. It is, for everyone except the author, pretty boring. And authors are often shy, living in the world from their side of the keyboard. It makes for a marketing conundrum. As the author, how do you sell books? As consumers, we want action—writing, by itself, isn’t dynamic.

The standard formula, the book fair, is death on cold toast. Uncomfortable for both the author and the consumer, it is Authors + Card Tables + Books = Boring. It’s like one of those sad little small town zoos, where the animals are housed in small, concrete cages. At best, you’re tempted to tap on the glass to elicit some response, or throw popcorn, even when the signs admonish you not to feed the animals. At worst, you scurry by, shoulders hunched, eyes averted.

I’ve joined an Author’s Group. We discussed at great length the challenge of the “author’s event.” We swapped horror stories of our collective experiences, trapped behind stacks of books in the entry of some otherwise kindly bookseller. We vowed not to repeat the equation.

Traverse City Authors announces its Celebration of Story. On June 14, at the Little Fleet, we’re holding a story slam benefit for Front Street Writers (a local nonprofit program for young writers.) After all, at its essence, what we do is tell stories. Come see the Authors, in their natural habitat, surrounded by good food and drink (because authors aren’t stupid), and yes, of course, books.

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