This final leg of my book tour began with a trip on the ferry cross the Mersey, a trip I’ve been longing to make since I was…well…rather young. The sun was shining. Jerry and the Pacemakers were singing in my head. It was a great way to start a very hectic, funny, frustrating, rewarding, eye-opening, bittersweet weekend.
I think I love Liverpool. Yes — it’s true. It’s a city full of contrasts, memories and aspirations. It has one of the most amazing Cathedrals I’ve ever seen, just up the road from boarded up, abandoned buildings nestled against multi-million pound renovation projects. The people are warm and welcoming, if occasionally unintelligible, and it has a great Waterstones!
Friday is not the busiest day of the week for a bookstore, so it took some time finding people to talk to. I realized I had my work cut out for me when the first person I managed to find started talking about how she likes novels “with lots of killings and slashings. Lots of knives —
you know, like this” and then started making stabbing gestures. Try as I might, I had to admit Tangled Roots was probably not her cup of tea. So, a somewhat inauspicious start. That was soon followed by the appearance of their other featured author of the day — a local celebrity who writes a series of books on “haunted Liverpool.” He was seated at the front of the store and his queue of readers soon extended out the shop and onto the street. But they also didn’t, on the surface, seem to be my sort of readers. Most of them had hair colour not normally found in nature, and an exceedingly wide variety of body piercings. But not to be deterred, I kept making eye contact and chatting whenever I could,
and eventually I found my 3 sales (3 seems to be my magic number). Final tally: sold 3, left 17 signed, and befriended a very enthusiastic and helpful staff.
On to Manchester, a city much too big to really get a handle on when you’re only there for 24 hours. I had no idea. The buildings are huge and tall – more like New York than any other British city I’ve seen so far, and the streets are jammed with people. The Waterstones on the main drag was also packed, but…alas. It was not for me. As those of you who read the blueblog know, my spot in that store was pre-empted by none other than Sting himself. Yes, Sting, who I have always secretly loved, going all the way back to his Police years. Who would have thought that he would turn on me in such a way! So, no, my signing was not at the big downtown Waterstones as originally planned, but at the sprawling Borders in the nearby suburban mall. What a store. Huge, with fabulous extensive holdings in everything from literary criticism to gothic novels to classical cd’s to humorous greeting cards to grande double decaf lattes. Yes, a store full of merchandise but empty of customers. There were times over the 2 hours that I seriously thought about approaching the enormous tatooed security guard to see if he’d like to read a 300-page literary novel about physics and religion. I was worried. But it goes to show that in this crazy process you must never say die, because by the time I was through I had somehow made my 3 sales, and while I was at it, had some of the most wonderful discussions about writing and reading and literature that I’ve had with customers anywhere on this entire tour.
So there you have it — all the news from the front. 99% of it is wonderful, but often in unusual ways. I thank my imperturbable publisher, bluechrome, for giving me the chance to do this, and all of you for letting me write about it and so find a way to understand it all. I know this isn’t really the end of the road. In some ways it’s just the beginning. But the summer hols are looming and life will begin to slow down for a while. But stay tuned — I’m compiling “Sue Guiney’s Handy Helpful Tips for Successful Book Signings”, which will hopefully be posted on the next blog this week. And in the meantime, here’s something from Sting that makes me realize he really should read Tangled Roots. He’d love it! He’d love me! We’d become such good friends :-))
So, another pair of book signing, and twice three books sold. And I felt bad because Reading, the first stop, had only produced three sales. You do deserve a rest after spending all this time travelling all over the place.
Thank you for writing these very interesting posts.
oooh, Sting! I too have always thought we would be good friends if we’d ever met. I used ot be quite friendly with his first wife , but when I met her they were already divorced.I don’t care what she said, I still think he and I would bond. He used to be a teacher, so he’d probably enjoy something intelligent like Tangled Roots – I think I sold two copies today, by the way – I did a sponsored walk and afterward some ladies I didn’t know were speaking ill of Richard and Judy, and I said ‘I can see you’re too intlligent for that sort of thing, so if you’re looking for something to read this summer…’ which they were and they wrote down the title and your name. It was so easy – I couldn’t have done it for myself – love the stories of your signings – and three is pretty good, if they each have two friends and each friend has two friends, and if I meet two people on each sponsored walk and they meet two people… this is how things run and run -well done!
Oooh, I do so lurve Sting too. Fab song that one. Well I have nothing but admiration for you – doing book tours and signings like that. Totally impressed – I will need to employ someone to be me if I ever have to do that.
Well done for your sales, you must be exhausted with all that travelling.
I suppose if your spot had to be pre-empted by anyone, Sting is certainly impressive enough to be the one to do it.
Ah, that damn Sting, he’s so talented…. and he has lovely arms. Or he did have. Sorry you didn’t convert the knife-admiring reader to Tangled Roots, aren’t people strange? You make Liverpool sound like a very exciting place, never been there but I would love to. Congrats on the books sold, maybe you’re doing it three at a time, which is triple what you told me, so good on ya!
I love that song, thanks for that. Happy final bit of book tour.
I got up this morning to an e-mail from my friends apologising for not making it to your book signing (Her little girl was ill which was why she didn’t make it). I have been promised that many signed copies will be bought to make up for it!!
C x
Thanks all. And Carol: Thank your friends for me, too!
I’ve loved reading about your tour and look forward to “Sue Guiney’s Handy Helpful Tips for Successful Book Signings.
Sting? Pah! It should have been you.
btw guess what arrived for me this morning, at last? Your book, that’s what:-)