Monday morning, Will I drove south to Indigo South Trail in Douglasdale. I introduced myself to a bookseller standing near the entrance. She led us to the mystery section. Deadly Fall was on the shelves – four copies.

We asked about arranging an author signing. She said, yes that would be a great thing to do and gave me a card with the manager’s name and contact information.

From there, we drove to Chapters Spectrum in the northeast. Being Monday, a slow sales day, it was once again easy to get a bookseller’s attention. Marie Claire was thrilled when I told her I’d written a mystery set in Calgary and said she’d buy one of their copies – which weren’t on the shelves. Nor could her co-bookseller Rita find them in the back, although the records said they were there.

Marie Claire and Rita gave us the manager’s card and said he’d be in that afternoon. At home, I gave him a phone call. He said, author signings were a great medium for sales. Given delivery times and my spring schedule, we set a tentative signing date – Saturday, June 18th – the day before Father’s Day. I’d thought Deadly Fall would make a more suitable gift for Mom, but he noted this might be a day a lot of women would be out shopping.  Good point.

For the signing, he said he’d order 40 copies of my book. Forty copies! “You should easily sell that,” he said. “Really?” “Sure,” he said. “A man who came in for an impromptu signing on the weekend sold that many. Why not you?”  The manager suggested doing the signing from noon-4:00 or 5:00 PM, the prime customer traffic hours, but I could always stay later – the store closes at 10:00 PM that day. He added, “Sometimes book signings get to be a lot of fun.” “Really? Really?”

I asked if it would be a problem if I did signings in other stores. No problem, he said, and suggested that if I was interested in signings at multiple stores I should contact their home office in BC and they would organize a signing schedule and arrange book orders. After thanking him, I called home office and left a message.

Two days later, I haven’t had a reply. If I don’t hear back soon, I’ll go back to approaching stores individually. I find I’m enjoying the personal contact. Booksellers are are terrific people; they are enthusiastic about local writers and invariably love books.