The Art of the Quickie
Friday, July 6th, 2007Babysitting is arranged, dinner reservations are made, a five-star hotel room is reserved, scented candles and fancy lotions are in place, and your lover’s eyes have that faraway look—everything is set for the ideal romantic evening. But the night begins and dinner is overpriced, the babysitter calls with a minor emergency, and a bachelor party is taking place in the hotel room right next to yours. You planned the perfect romantic event, but it gradually became an unsatisfying disappointment.
Book signing events can turn out the same way. You can handpick the best bookstore in the market, schedule the perfect event date, get lots of copies of the book on hand, and coordinate publicity and promotional collateral for the event, but none of that guarantees the desired result. You can show up at your signing pumped up and in the mood to sell a lot of books only to realize after a grueling two hours that a mere three people have stopped by your table. Fortunately, both the anticlimactic romantic encounter and the poorly attended book signing have a remedy: the “quickie.” continue reading
