{"id":1888,"date":"2015-11-01T13:46:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T13:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2020-01-18T09:22:50","modified_gmt":"2020-01-18T14:22:50","slug":"nightmare-on-bookstore-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/nightmare-on-bookstore-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Nightmare On Bookstore Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

I stopped doing bookstore “black hole” signings back in the 90s.\u00a0 The kind where the store asks you to just sit at a table for a few hours with a pile of your books, a table sign, and a desperate smile.\u00a0 Every now and then, over the sound of the register, someone announces your presence in the store over a loudspeaker, but it doesn’t matter: you really don’t exist and your career was a delusion.\u00a0 You’re lost.<\/p>\n

\n

I saw an author doing one like that the other afternoon.\u00a0 I’d stopped at a local bookstore that had turned into a mini-mall selling candles, author dolls, DVDs and CDs, Christmas ornaments–you name it.\u00a0\u00a0 Her book had a tropical isle on the cover in pinks and blues and a hot title: Death by Destination.<\/em>\u00a0 The author was dressed in matching colors, but she looked pale and miserable.\u00a0 The store hadn’t done her any favors by putting her in an out-of-the-way section.<\/p>\n

Afternoon signings are the pits and I wondered if anyone had bought her book or even talked to her. The few people seeing her skirted the table, eyes down, or worse, bumped into it and didn’t even apologize.\u00a0 She tried engaging the scant passersby, but was shunned ever single time.<\/p>\n

It was mortifying. I wanted to go over and invite her out for a drink and tell her how I’d given up on this kind of giant boondoggle, how over time I’d found a niche at non-traditional venues that were much more satisfying and that if I did sign at bookstores, it was only after a reading or talk.<\/p>\n

But just when I thought I might actually wade through the forest of peppy greeting cards to help salvage her day, I saw her resolutely get up and stride over to someone idly leafing through a dictionary in the Languages section.<\/p>\n

“Hi!,” she chirped. “I’m Ibis Goldenroad!\u00a0 I write travel mysteries.\u00a0 I see you’re looking at a French dictionary.\u00a0 Are you traveling to France?”<\/p>\n

I moved forward to overhear the reply.\u00a0 The appalled elderly woman, wearing a chic black coat, said stiffly, “I’m having a dinner party and wanted to make sure I spelled things right.\u00a0 For the menu at each place setting.”\u00a0 With that coat and carefully styled white hair, and the frosty tone, she reminded me of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"prada\"<\/a>“Oh that’s so interesting!\u00a0 You don’t like computers?”<\/p>\n

“It’s not that, dear.\u00a0 My Internet is down.”\u00a0 The customer turned away.<\/p>\n

The “dear” was a warning, but desperate Goldenrod didn’t listen and actually touched her shoulder.\u00a0 The woman flinched.<\/p>\n

“How fun!\u00a0 Oh, I love to cook!\u00a0 And so do my lead characters!\u00a0 One is a master chef who works on a cruise line.\u00a0 You’d love<\/em> my mystery series.\u00a0 Do you read mysteries?”<\/p>\n

There was a reluctant nod.<\/p>\n

“You do?\u00a0 That’s wonderful! What kind?”<\/p>\n

Without turning, the woman snapped, “The kind where annoying woman are killed.”<\/p>\n

Lev Raphael’s 25 books range from memoir to mystery and beyond.\u00a0 You can find them on Amazon.<\/a>
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I stopped doing bookstore “black hole” signings back in the 90s.\u00a0 The kind where the store asks you to just sit at a table for a few hours with a pile of your books, a table sign, and a desperate smile.\u00a0 Every now and then, over the sound of the register, someone announces your presence … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,218],"tags":[592,607,497,349,591,292,606,198,139,496,329,98,632,609],"class_list":["post-1888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice-for-writers","category-satire","tag-author-book-tours","tag-author-signings","tag-authors","tag-book-readings","tag-book-signings","tag-book-tours","tag-bookstores","tag-fans","tag-meryl-streep","tag-publishing","tag-readers","tag-satire","tag-spoof","tag-the-devil-wears-prada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2254,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions\/2254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}