I hope you'll let us know how the signing went. And what you ended up doing with the first run of fifty books.
So the signing went great. I had some wonderful conversations with customers and staff (And Laer came!!
it was great to meet him and now I have a copy of his book to enjoy, as well.
)
The best part was connecting with complete strangers over the topic of climate change. There's so much collective and individual worry about it--like we all know, and we all care (except the idiots who don't), and we don't speak of it because it is so worrisome and seemingly divisive. And yet, the conversations were *wonderful.* The opposite of divisive. We talked about what we're doing to make a difference, and one young lady had been at several strikes with Greta when she was in town, and the whole thing was fantastic.
Sales were not great, but they did happen, and I'd absolutely do this signing again. I'm now on a first-name basis with the manager and staff at the bookstore.
As far as the poorly-formatted copies, in the end the 'correct' copies didn't arrive in time
so all I had were the bad copies. I showed the mistake to everyone who stopped by and no one was bothered by it *at all.* People were more likely to say "that makes it a collector's edition" than anything. The mistake did not impact sales, but sales were very low.
Having said that, there's no way I could unload fifty of these through signings alone unless i stopped writing and started really hitting the phone to find more opportunities. I think writing the sequel is a better plan.
So, what to do with the copies? I think I'll use them as freebies to hand out to bookstore owners, which I wanted to do anyway based on Brandon Sanderson's advice on his blog. I've been planning a trip up the coast with my sister, and she's a book-ophile, and we'd both love mapping out all the unique little shops to stop at. I mean, there are probably a dozen independent book sellers in LA alone; another dozen in the bay area at least, Portland and Seattle must each have loads... and all the smaller cities between here and there.
If I make it onto Ingram Spark, then even stopping at various B&Ns makes sense too.
So that is the plan. Hand the bad copies, which are fine but the page numbers are funny, to store owners so they can be familiar with the title. The bad copies are numbered.
If you want to buy a collector's edition, PM me,
Thank you to everyone here who has bought a copy off Amazon! I don't know who you all are, but I do see them moving and I appreciate it!!!!
(p.s. OH! Edit: I also thought it would be fun to put some in Little Free Libraries.
Google maps knows where they are!)