A couple of weeks ago, my kids and I attended my first-ever 'Author's Night' sponsored by a New England Publishing House.
I've never done a book signing or anything - mainly because all my books are sold via Amazon - but I signed up for this one because (a) it was local and (b) it was cheap and (c) I had some extra books lying around.
Long story short, here are some highlights of the night which are actually kind of like lowlights.
1) Not my Venue
If you've read either one of my books or - you know - even this blog, you understand that my humor is a bit, well, less-than-clean.
This is when we pulled up to the establishment for the book signing and I looked up and saw this:
Ah, shit.
The place is a winery and vineyard, and the entire building was lit up with ornate lighting and it was very classy looking.
I put the 'ass' in 'class' so I pretty much felt this was going to be a shitshow right from the first moment my front tires hit the parking lot.
2) SO MANY OLD PEOPLE
My kids and I arrived late, so we got a really shitty table, but set up as fast as we could and waited for the crowds to arrive.
Which they did. Via walkers and nurses aids and I'm pretty sure I saw the guy from "Weekend at Bernie's."
Yeah. My book will go over well here.
3) My kids, the salesmen
About halfway through the night I realized my 13-year old daughter had gone missing.
I found her canoodling at every single author's table. Sitting WITH them..talking to them..bothering them, etc.
She was excited and having a great time.
My son?
My son stayed with me trying to hock my books to elderly people who were scorning me. This, even though my boy had put on a fake mustached and was doing his best carnival voice of "STEP RIGHT UP" with a hint of Italian accent trying to get people to buy my crap.
Near the end of the night, I had them walking around the building holding signs like sandwich boards. I will stop at nothing to humiliate my children in the name of money.
4) One of the worst moments of my life
During the evening, people would stop by. Pick up the books, thumb through them..talk to me about them, etc. etc. The problem with this is that my books generally carry a PG-13 to R rating and maybe even sometimes NC-17 depending on the chapter.
So, as I was standing there with my son. Two little old women meandered over and grabbed up my first book, "Things Go Wrong for Me."
And there I stood, in horror, as they opened it RIGHT TO THIS PAGE in my 'spamming the spammers' chapter:
Yep.
I think they 'I will put this in your ass' caption was really going to hook them into fully funding my next book project.
I watched them open to this page - in slow-motion terror - and ultimately had to just, TURN AROUND. I couldn't bear the look on their face.
When I gathered enough muster, I turned back around.
They were gone.
Shocker.
Ha. Shocker.
Something else I'll put in your ass.
