Reruns

Randy writes articles from time to time, and posts on internet mystery sites more often than is healthy. Here are a few you might enjoy if you missed them the first time around:

Published in CrimeSpree Magazine:

A Virgin Author Reports: THE BABY GAME Signing Tour

By Randall Hicks

I wet my pants on the way to my first book signing. On the good side, I can report it was from condensation dripping from my glass of ice water, rather than a bladder malfunction. On the bad side, a wet spot is a wet spot. If the sun had been shining into the car maybe I could have counted on the sunshine to dry me, but it wasn't so I had to create some heat via friction. In other words, rapidly rub the area, using my Boy Scout fire-starter training. This caused more than a few looks on my drive to Book Carnival in Orange, California.

Maybe every virgin author goes through it. Or, maybe I'm just a big wimp. Regardless, when my publicist proudly first presented me with my 14 stop, four-state signing tour (including Bouchercon), I felt a panic attack as severe as during my one ill-fated attempt to ask out a cheerleader in high school. Calling her a sadist would not be fair (the publicist, not the cheerleader); she was just doing her job. Still, I felt there was some malicious joy in her face at my horror.

I called T. Jefferson Parker, one of the authors who'd been kind enough to befriend me with a blurb, for some basic "Book Signing 101" guidance. "What page do I sign on?" "Black pen or blue?" "Date it or not date it?" "What about personal salutations?" Of course, all these questions presupposed someone was actually going to show up at the signings. Adding to my anxiety was the fact that my first signing was going to be in the town in which my parents live. The only thing worse than having no one show up would be having no one show up with my parents watching. I could imagine them valiantly trying to hide their pity, and offering comments designed to bolster my ego, but failing miserably, like "You survived the cheerleader humiliation, honey. You can survive this."

Jeff tried to lower my expectations. He pointed out I should not expect big crowds - or any crowds for that matter - as the purpose was to get to know booksellers. He told me about one of his signings on a rainy day, when the only two people present were two homeless men who came in to get out of the rain. I can still visualize Jeff's heartfelt reading to them. Still, his comments didn't actually help much as every signing I've seen Jeff do, he had a line out the door. But I appreciated the thought.

Despite all this, somehow I managed to leave my house and head for Book Carnival with some confidence in my step. I was just out the door when my wife stopped me.

WIFE: "You aren't wearing that shirt to your signing are you?"

ME: "What's wrong with this shirt?" It was my favorite shirt and did an admirable job of camouflaging my lack of both biceps and pecs.

WIFE: "Nothing's wrong with the shirt, but you wore it for your author photo on your book jacket. You can't wear the same shirt to a signing. It'll look like you only have one shirt!"

She had a point, so back upstairs I went for another shirt. While there my teenage son stopped me. Like all teenagers, he offers nothing but kind and helpful comments to his beloved parents.

SON: "Whoa! What's up with the pants, dad?"

ME: "What's wrong with my pants?" I knew they weren't visible in my author photo.

SON: "Looks like you're expecting a flood. Totally highwater."

I looked down. Yep. No matter how stylish my socks might be, I guess they weren't designed to be visible below my pants. But my son wasn't done.

SON: "And try to stand up straight, dad. It hides that you've got that little belly going on. Nothing's worse than a skinny man with a belly."

My daughter, who at age eleven, is still unabashedly sweet, gave me a hug as I finally made it back to the door, now standing straighter and in my new clothes.

DAUGHTER: "Don't worry, dad. I think you look great. And you can hardly see the blood where you cut yourself trimming your ear hairs."

On the drive to Book Carnival I gave myself a pep talk. I'd already met Ed, the owner, when I'd dropped by the week before to introduce myself, and view the scene of my future human sacrifice, I mean book signing. Actually, it had been a great drop-in, and I watched my first example of the handselling of my book, as Ed expertly sold a copy to a charming woman, Julie, then introduced me to her as the author. She was the first person I signed a book for and it was a pretty cool moment. Okay, I'll be honest. It made me so happy my eyes watered. The only bad moment was when Ed told me he'd ordered 48 copies for the signing. This filled me with as much performance anxiety as my first time with a woman. I just hoped the signing would last longer.

As my wet spot quickly dried, my confidence began to soar. In fact, I managed to convince myself there might even be a line waiting for me when I arrived. (Ahh, a new writer's fantasies.) I'd received a call the day before that the main Orange County newspaper, The Register, with a readership of a whopping half million or so, ran a feature on THE BABY GAME on the front page of its Entertainment section. So with the uniquely optimistic reasoning of a new novelist, I figured that if only one-half of one percent of its readers saw it and came, that'd be two hundred fifty people! Right? I mean, what could possibly be more exciting than a book signing? Plus, the reviews had been great, and everyone reads book reviews. Don't they? I mean, doesn't everyone subscribe to Library Journal?

I arrived at Book Carnival about thirty minutes early - too early to go in - so I just slowly drove by. Nope. No line. Not a single person, actually. I made a quick tour of the city and arrived back about five minutes early. Still no line. In fact, it appeared it must be Super Bowl Sunday, as the entire town seemed suddenly empty. Or maybe a plague had hit. Never had the sidewalk in front of a store looked more desolate. I went inside. No one there who wasn't paid to be there. At this point I was praying for rain, so at least Jeff Parker's two winos would show up.

I was escorted to a desk in the back. Waiting for me were fourteen books, which I was told were pre-solds. Suddenly, the store didn't feel so empty. I'd sold fourteen books! Somebody liked me after all! Even better, signing them gave me something to do, since evidently no one was coming to my signing. I suddenly became the slowest signing author in history, calculating that if I spent four minutes per signature, I could stretch the signings to a full hour, and manage to look busy the entire time.

Soon though, people started to filter in, and not just my parents. Over the next hour, about fifty people came, trickling in a few at a time. For brief moments, there was even a line. Maybe all of four people deep - and true, it was actually a family standing together - but a line! How to signal someone with a camera to quickly capture this momentous event, perhaps never to be repeated, without being too obvious? Quick, take my picture and make sure you get the line in the shot!

The people who came to this first signing immediately earned "best friend for life" status. There were some wonderful people I'd met through the internet sites I post on like 4 Mystery Addicts and Dorothy L, some clients from my law practice, book store customers, and people my parents had forced to come through a mixture of intimidation and guilt. Forty-four books sold in all, plus best of all, I had lunch out with my 4MA and Dorothy L pals afterwards.

Once past the terrors of book signing number one, I immediately transferred them to signing number two, my official "launch party" at Brentano's in Los Angeles. As if the word "party" wasn't enough to intimidate me, my publicist informed me she was bringing a cake, snacks and drinks. She also told me to invite "all my friends." Okay, all my friends in Los Angeles totals about, ah, two people. Great. Plus I couldn't count on mommy and daddy to wrangle up a dozen people like at Book Carnival. There, the fear of no one coming had been bad enough. Now I had an image of me standing next to a big cake, all alone. Talk about pitiful.

I solved part of this fear by dragging my wife, kids and our French exchange student along (which required bribes of excessive shopping in the mall afterwards). Naturally, when we arrived promptly at the time of the signing, there was no one there. This left my publicist, my family and me, gamely smiling at each other like we were having fun. But soon, people started filtering in - my first agent, my old dentist, a fellow writer friend Patricia Smiley, and others - to the point the chairs were full and people had to stand in the aisles. Admittedly, there were only six chairs, but hey, "standing in the aisles" sounds impressive. One gentleman pulled me aside and indicated the chair set up for me to sign in and said, "The last time I was here, Bill Clinton sat there." True, Clinton likely had a couple thousand people for his signing, but the comparison made me feel absurdly proud, kind of like when I saw my name next to Maya Angelou's in the L.A Times Book Calendar. These little moments, like signing my first book, became some of my most treasured memories.

Several more signings have since come and gone. My second Los Angeles signing, at The Mystery Bookstore, had a total crowd of one mother and her baby which, damn it, I'm counting as two people. Even there though, despite the fact I felt I let them down by not pulling a crowd, I had a great time talking with the staff, wonderful people who share my love of mysteries. I've had some shared signings as well, with Terrill Lee Lankford, Zoe Sharp and Blake Crouch.

Just as when I attended my first Bouchercon last month, where I met tons of writers, it amazes me how nice a group of people mystery writers are, and how welcoming to a new writer. I had a nice lunch with Lee after our signing, and Zoe and her husband dropped by my house for a nice lunch together after our Arizona signings when her tour brought her to California. Barbara Seranella has been no stranger to our home-squeezed lemonade. Jeff Parker and I had a ping pong match more heated than the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.

What have I learned? First, you sell the most books when you sign in the city in which your parents live. (I'm now actively recruiting foster parents in every city around the world.) Second, it's not the size of the crowd, but time spent with new people at book events, which is truly rewarding. Third, I'm so proud to be a mystery writer, and get to hang out with fellow mystery readers and other writers. I'm living my fantasy. There is no finer group of people.

TOP TEN MOMENTS AS A MYSTERY AUTHOR

The following Top Ten list was posted by Randy on various internet mystery sites he enjoys visiting (4 Mystery Addicts, a Yahoo group; Murder and Mayhem, a Yahoo group; and DorothyL):

My first mystery, THE BABY GAME, came out in August, and my first-ever book tour was one of the most exciting times of my life. Here are my top ten moments.

1. SEEING MY BOOK AT WALMART. Okay, I admit it. I brought it in myself and left it on their "bestseller" stand. Still, I had fun walking by it over and over again as I shopped. Besides the temporary ego boost, here's what I'm thinking. . . When a customer buys it, the Walmart computers will automatically "reorder" it. Before you know it, every Walmart in the nation will be stocking my book.

2. HITTING NUMBER ONE ON THE BESTSELLER LIST. Nothing could compare to seeing my book debut in the number one fiction slot on the NYT list, assuming you don't count the 197 books that were ahead of it.

3. READING MY READER REVIEWS ON AMAZON. All right, I confess. My mother wrote all 83 rave reviews using imaginative false names. Still, it makes a guy feel good.

4. UNEXPECTED EXTRA INCOME. No, I don't mean my advance, or royalties. I'm talking about the big bucks available to those lucky enough to be in close proximity to talented and famous writers. No, I'm not talking about selling their signed books - I'm not about to part with those. Besides, the people who buy those are normal, rational people with sane budgets. I decided to go for a buying audience with. . . shall I say, unique tastes. For example, those leftover green beans from Harlan Coben's plate at the Anthony Awards banquet? They fetched me $16,000 on e-bay. Dennis Lehane's used napkin, offered in tandem with his photograph from the Anthony Awards table centerpiece (for some reason, autographed by Ken Bruen) went for $17,400. And although I initially felt guilty taking off with one of Laura Lippman's black stiletto high-heeled shoes when she slipped them off to relax when chatting in the lobby at Bouchercon, any guilt I had disappeared when the winning bid topped out at $42,350.

5. BEING ASKED TO APPEAR ON OPRAH. I was going to accept the offer, until I was told the theme of the show was "If THIS guy can get published, ANYBODY can."

6. READING MY FIRST BLURB. I was so excited to read the glowing adjectives of none other than T. Jefferson Parker in his pre-pub review. Of course, it wasn't THE T. Jefferson Parker who has won two Best Novel Edgars, rather someone I found in the phone book with the same name. For my next book I've planned ahead and found Mr. Nicholas Y. Times of Planter City, Georgia. I plan to abbreviate his name to N.Y. TIMES. And now that I think about it, there's got to be more than one Oprah, right?

7. MEETING COOL PEOPLE. No, I don't mean other authors. Don't get me wrong, that's fun too, but I was thinking about the two women I got to sit between on my flight from San Diego to Chicago for my first Bouchercon. They were flying there to compete in the women's Professional Volleyball Tour. It was only because I'm a true sports enthusiast that I sat down between them, not because they both looked like tanned, gorgeous, blond swimsuit models. We also had the chance to discuss many intellectual issues of interest to me, such as do they compete in such skimpy bathing suits voluntarily, or to increase corporate sponsorship and TV ratings? Of course, I apologized for the disgusting, middle-aged, couch-potato men who watched only to see young women cavort around in bikinis. Pigs.

8. OUTSELLING CARL HIAASEN. I mentioned this one once before in a post the day it happened, but can't omit it from my Top Ten list. My publisher told me THE BABY GAME was in every Borders and a good chunk of the B&Ns. Although I'm sure a publisher never, ever lies, I did a little checking, and sure enough, each Borders had one or two copies. On one such trip my eleven year old daughter, Hailey, spotted my book even before I did, in its usual spot right next to Carl Hiaasen. Of course, Carl had an entire shelf of titles and I had one lonely copy. My daughter took this in and said, "Wow, Dad! Your book's doing great! They've already sold ALL your books but one.. . and that poor Hiaasen guy isn't selling any!"

9. GETTING TO "TALK BOOKS" WITH LEE CHILD. At Bouchercon, entering the giant dining hall for the Anthony Awards Banquet, I spied Lee Child and his wife about twenty feet in front of me. Knocking down about fifteen people who were between us, including old women and small children, I finally made it to his side, casually sidling up to him as if I just happened to find myself there. We had a nice chat until his wife signaled security and I was escorted to a table on the opposite side of the room.

10. HAVING FIFTY PEOPLE AT MY FIRST BOOK SIGNING. Okay, sure, half were relatives, and the other half were prostitutes hired hourly to stand in my signing line. . . but still, it was a sight to behold. The only disappointment was when I tried to chat up some of the ladies with a few minutes left on the clock and they refused to even talk to me. They claimed they had SOME standards.

Okay, I admit it. I was playing my Top Ten list for laughs - well, some of them anyway. My daughter actually did make her Carl Hiaasen comment when we stopped by a SoCal Borders. And I did come close to knocking down a few people siding up to Lee Child at Bouchercon, but if his wife signalled security to get rid of me, I didn't see her do it. Oh, yeah, the two members of the Women's Pro Volleyball Association. . . they were not a fantasy. Thank God. A middle-aged man needs to have a few such moments.

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