I went to my first live event as an author and sold 10+ physical copies of my debut collection– Stones, Stars and the Storms Between. I didn’t realize how unprepared I was to describe my collection of short stories until I was asked the simplest, sharpest question– What’re they about? Below is my dramatized retelling of how this scenario could have played out. (In reality everyone was great and I think I answered the questions without tripping over myself too much)
<<C: What are your stories about?
M: Magic? Well, there’s magic in them but they aren’t about the magic, they’re about characters.
C: So it’s about characters? Wait, aren’t all stories?
M: Uhm… erm… each story is about what the character is going through.
C: *Stares at me the way I stare at food* So like all stories?
M: *Struggles to remember basic human interactions.* Each story looks at different themes but is set in a unique fantasy world. Like grief, freedom, sometimes death or loss. They all have relatively positive endings though.
C: Oh okay, cool. *Stares at the book the way I stare at food.*
M: I should mention that most of the stories in the collection received Honorable Mentions in the Writers of the Future contest.
C: Hmm. >>
And then they would either purchase or not. It really did make me realize that I never sat down and wrote small elevator pitches for the individual stories, as I assumed I could just say it was a short story collection and people wouldn’t ask about the contents. (I’m a little silly sometimes.) There are one-line blurbs on the back of the book, and those might be good enough for face-to-face meetings, but I think I’ll workshop my sales pitch moving forward.
All in all, it was a blast. I really enjoyed making the connections I did and it got me mentally and physically prepared for the Indie book fair I’ll be attending in May.
