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Author events at bookstores are fickle things, as we all know. The only ones really well attended seem to be launch parties where the author provides most of the audience or signings for bestsellers who no longer need the visibility or sales. Yet most of us hope and persist and accept invitations when they’re offered.

We don’t want to tell booksellers their business, and any indie staff reading can probably stop here. But there are lots of young events and community relations managers out there, and in the spirit of promoting mutual success, we’d like to offer these suggestions — based on our experiences with booksellers who have really done it right — for how booksellers can help make a speculative fiction author’s signing something right out of a fantasy:

1. Look into the future… at least far enough to have the author’s books on hand in time for the event. This seems obvious, but it must not be. We can only carry so many in our cars without looking egotistical. N.B.: When we arrive and have no books to sell to our adoring relatives fans, it gives away the fact that you don’t normally stock them, either.
2. Remove the cones of silence between the person who schedules the event and the person who will be in the store when we get there. This is often not the same person, and it’s very difficult to give the presentation or panel discussion we’ve spent time creating on your request when there is no mic, no wall to show slides on, no chairs for a panel discussion, and nowhere for an audience to stand, let alone sit. And we understand you’re busy, it’s awfully nice if the staff member we’ve met drops by now and then, introduces us if there’s an audience, or is still in the store when it’s time to say good-bye.
3. Resist deus ex machina thinking and don’t schedule our event during dinner time, the president’s visit, or an announced alien landing. It’s probably tempting to think we will outshine the competition to draw people into the store, but most of us don’t have that many relatives fans. We’ll just be sitting in a dead store with you, and it’s not reassuring to hear, “Yeah, the store is always dead about now.”
4. Let us create the fantasy settings; stick us somewhere ugly up front. Please stop creating your lovely event spaces in the far back corner of the store, down a hall, behind the tallest shelves, and/or outside past the dumpster. (Joni had an event once that required going outside through a back door and down a hall. The only person who found her was looking for the restroom.) It doesn’t matter how nice that space might be, and nobody listens to the announcements you make on the PA about it. If you can’t put us near the cash register or the front door, put us at a card table on the sidewalk out front. Literally. (Some of Joni’s best events have been on sidewalks.) Linda Joy adds that a bookstore that recently did things right placed her and two other authors right up front at large tables that had even been decorated for them. Whoo!
5. Let your galaxy know. You probably know a few folks we don’t, and we don’t expect you to do all the promotion, but attendance tends to be better when bookstores send info to their contact lists and put up signs before the day of the event (not just that morning). If you can possibly manage it, consider offering a 10% discount on our books during the signing. That helps make the opportunity more special for those teetering. We’ll remind them that kids’ books make great gifts, too. Consider making a central display of our books both before and after the event both to help promote and for easier sales to those interested but unable to attend.
6. Remember that unlike some of our characters, we are fairly friendly humans, and it’s okay to:

* Ask how to pronounce our names.
* Ask how many copies we might expect to sell. Unless we’re brand new at this, we’re generally pretty realistic. We know it’s a hassle when orders are overly optimistic, and we hate returns, too.
* Offer us a cup of water from the employee drinking fountain, if you can’t spring for a bottle of water or a drink from the store’s coffee stand. It’s disruptive to run to the drinking fountain in mid-event.
* Ask your staff to treat authors with respect. We don’t get paid for booksignings and often travel a long way for an event or spend money on supplies. A little kindness goes a long way, and if you treat us all like bestsellers, we’re more likely to have a best-selling event together.

Last but not least, thanks for the invitations! We love you and the hard work you do, and it tickles us to think that you’ve thought of us at all. We have fun meeting and talking to you, even if nobody else comes. But isn’t it even more fun if they do?