my book, in a bookstore
in the flesh
My poetry collection, The Evening Party, hit online shelves on September 1st of this year. Before September came to an end, I signed a contract with a bookstore owner so it could be hit his store’s shelves by the start of October.
I must say I’ve been on the luckier side of things recently, starting with my amazing friends and their encouragement (and nudging) to approach Bücher’s Best owner Jörg with a copy of my book to let him flip through it and get a first look.
I was nervous, stumbling over my words as I pitched my book to him, what it’s about, when it was released and how much I sold it for online. I thought he might laugh at me, or flip through it with half an eye, but he was immediately open to the idea, and open to looking at my book.
He asked me to bring around some copies, we would draft a contract, see how it sells. The time I brought him copies around, we seemed to miss each other, as he was in his home office with his cat, Nagori, and I was talking to his part-timer instead. I left my name, and five copies of The Evening Party on his desk.
A week later, I came in when he was working. I walked through towards his desk, along with my sister, and he gave me his hand, offered us an espresso, and I asked him about his cat who was sleeping soundly behind him.
He asked me about myself and when I moved to Dresden, and how I came to begin writing. He was elated to hear about the process of publishing my book, downloaded it on his Kindle right away.
He read through my German translation of the blurb and three of the poems from it that I had tried my best translating into German. He liked them, telling me this approvingly, and asked if I could translate some more. I said I would do it, and come back with three more. He seemed to be quite spontaneous when he asked if I was open to doing some readings and I was stunned, too stunned to speak.
I told him yes before thinking about it. I’m not the loud type to be agreeing to anything like this, and I never thought about this part of being an author, because it just seemed like something so far away in a possible future. But I agreed, and he said he’d think about it, about organising it and finding someone to live-translate as I read some poems from my book. I’m not sure if this will ever happen, but my first instinct was to just say Yes. The way he said Yes when I first came around with my book.
After signing a contract he prepared, and putting my copy into my bag, he grabbed my copies and put one of them in the window display, one of them in the poetry section of his bookstore, and another one in the English books section. He told me to feel free to take videos and photos, and so my sister did.
I walked around the store some more, a little bit in disbelief. I was soaking in this moment, this milestone of mine, seeing my paperback in a bookstore, in a proper shelf other than my own.
If there is anything I can give you as advice, it would be to keep trying and putting yourself, your work, out there. To carry your book with you, walk into independent bookstores and libraries, and approach a person, an owner, a part-timer, whoever meets you first, and to ask. You can’t expect for things to happen if you don’t ask for them.
The worst thing that can happen is they say No, and they might tell you why, and then there’s other places you can try. Again and again and again. I’m just being honest when I tell you I had luck on my side this time, truly. I had luck, and my guts.
