Having made it through the Peterborough book signing, we’re now holed up for the night in our favorite inexpensive motel in Manchester NH, and I am pondering the question that always gets asked on occasions like this, which is: Do readings and book signings actually do a working writer any good?
And the answer comes back, as it so often does in this business: Who the hell knows?
My own theory, for whatever it’s worth, is that readings and similar activities may not do much to sell the particular book you’re pushing at the time, but they probably do contribute to increasing your “hey, I saw this person once and he was a nice guy, so why not buy his new book” factor, at least a little bit.
(Don’t be a jerk to the booksellers, though. Like the folks in Production, they have the means in their hand to exact a subtle but devastating revenge.)
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