Tag booth

What a Weekend!

Dusty 1 Comment

WOW! That was… amazing.

This last weekend was the Tucson Festival of Books. And for the fourth year, I had a booth, and I offered my pirate books, the three volumes of The Adventures of Damnation Kane, for sale to anyone who: 1) Saw my tri-corner hat and pirate-themed shirt; 2) Noticed the name of the booth, or 3) Paused to look at the INCREDIBLE art that my wife Toni DeBiasi created for all three Volumes of the series.

And that was a LOT of people.

I went there with, I think, about 65 books.

The first day, Saturday, I sold 42 of them. (The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything!) I sold every copy of Volume I I had with me. I went home, got the four other copies of Volume I at my house, also grabbed my VERY FIRST copy, the first printed copy of any book I have ever written, and brought that on Sunday. I used the very first copy (which was NOT for sale) as a display copy.

I sold the other four. And six more copies of Volume II and Volume III. And I unfortunately had to turn away a few other people because I didn’t have a copy of Volume I to sell them, at the end of the day, or else I would have had at least two or three more sales.

I now have 13 copies left of the 69 copies I brought with me to the Festival.

I have never done that well. The Festival has always been pretty good to me: I have a good book (Three of them, I think), I have a good hook — “Can I tell you about my time-traveling Irish pirate?” — and the aforementioned three attention-grabbers (sign, cover art, and stylish chapeau) brings people close enough to get drawn in by my elevator pitch. But my previous record was, if I remember right, 29 books sold. So I almost doubled that.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who came and bought my books. I am honored beyond belief. And now I am anxious as hell that you all won’t like the books, or that you won’t like the third book, or — I dunno, something. So if you could see your way clear to tell me if you do like the books: go to the Contact link at the top of the page (Under the three lines, on mobile), or click on the Feedback link that should be floating in the bottom left corner of the page, and send me a message. Send me a Facebook message or Instagram message — @TheodenHumphrey, in both cases. (Also the same handle on X, if you are a glutton for punishment — or Threads, if you’re a glutton for social media.) Or if you’re really feeling good about my work, post a review somewhere — Amazon, or Goodreads, or Lulu.com where the books are produced — and then let me know that you did so. Thank you.

Thank you, as well, to my fantastic booth partner Amanda Cetas, who stood with me on a patch of sole-stabbing gravel for eighteen hours over two days, who covered me when I wanted to take a break (And made sales for me, too), who directed people to my side of the booth when they seemed more interested in fantasy than in historical fiction, and who stayed positive and energetic all the way through. Thank you, also, to all the people who bought Amanda’s books — she said she did better this year than she has before, too, so it wasn’t just the Pirate who made out like a bandit.

Amanda also shared my confusion over our nearest neighbors, who were… intactivists. Anti-circumcision activists. With whole books. About… circumcision. Now, I actually know the arguments against circumcision, and — how do you fill an entire book with them? Let alone TWO?!?

Needless to say, they did not send many customers over our way, and we didn’t send any their way, either. I didn’t have any people come to my booth and say, “Pirates, huh? You wouldn’t have anything about foreskins, by any chance?”

(I would have sent them over if they did. But they didn’t. The people over there still had people at their booth all weekend, so I think they did fine, too.)

If you didn’t get the book or books you wanted, or you now want more books, then please use the links on this page to Contact me or to order yourself a copy from Lulu.com. (If you Contact me, I will sign the book for you before I ship it.) If you didn’t make it to the Festival this year, then come to next year’s — Amanda and I will be there (Hopefully with our partner, the Poet, Lisa Watson, who wasn’t well enough to attend this year), and I will have all of the Adventures and at least one new book, as well. Amanda will probably have nine new projects, all of them as wonderful as the ones she has right now.

And if you bought books, two things: thank you for reading. You, along with the rest of the literate people, are the bulwark holding back the tide of Fahrenheit 451. You are giving my world meaning. You are joining me in this weird sort of slow-motion conversation that is a novel.

And also: get off the internet and go read. Like I’m about to do.

(If you’re wondering, I only bought two books this year. But that’s because this is my TBR pile.

No, I’m not kidding.)

Here are the two books, anyway.

Happy Reading, all.

This Morning

Dusty 2 Comments

This morning I am thinking about how much fun I am having. About how good I am at this.

I was in a booth at the Tucson Festival of Books yesterday. Selling my book.

I was worried on Friday that nobody would stop by the booth. But dozens of people did. Though we had some lulls, we were busy pretty much all day. We had a good spot, for one thing, which might have been because I was early to reserve the space, so we ended up near the food court on one of the main walkways, which was great. The name of the booth helped (We called it A Pirate and A Poet, and only a few people mistook that to say “A Pirate Poet” or “Pirate Poetry.” Though I don’t know why you wouldn’t stop to talk to a pirate poet; that sounds awesome.), as did the fact that I had two of my fellow teachers sharing the booth with me, my friend Lisa Watson — the Poet — and our friend and co-worker Adriana King, who was looking for clients for her editing and book-doctoring business. (I highly recommend them both, by the way. Lisa’s poetry has a lovely sweet tenderness to it, except when she’s writing ferociously, as she often does, and Adriana is one of the most organized, capable, hard-working and knowledgeable people I know.) Lots of people paused when they saw my display, and came over to talk to me, specifically.

I was worried that no one would show any interest in my book. I’ve been worried about that, that my premise is lame, that my fascination with pirates and my choice to write an entire book (an entire trilogy!) about one was too precious, or affected, or just focused on too narrow an audience. But I had people all day coming up with the words, “I love pirates!” To which I got to respond, “Me too!” And more than one person said that they read everything they can find about pirates. Most of those people took one of my bookmarks, which have my website address on them, so it’s entirely possible that some or several of those people will go on to buy the book from home.

I was worried that no one would buy the book. But I sold twelve copies. My wife overheard some other authors talking in the Indie Authors tent, where you could rent a single table space for cheaper than the whole booth cost (And I have to say, that booth was pricey. We all three did well, but I don’t know that we’ll actually make back the cost, not in direct sales at least.), and they were saying that they sold three or four books, and that the big seller had sold seven. I sold twelve. Several of those —  half, I think? — were to students of mine, past and present, which is cool all by itself, because it shows that my students were willing to shell out $25 for a book largely because I wrote it; but even cooler for me was the half a dozen people or so who bought the book because I sold it to them. Because I told them the story, the character, the origin of the idea, how I wrote it, anything else I could; and people bought it. People bought my book.

I did this well. I spoke casually and pleasantly, I addressed people as they came up to the booth but didn’t give a hard sell — I generally asked, “Can I tell you all about my pirate book?”  — my promotional materials were eye-catching and useful. And, most importantly, I wrote a good book. Two people took the time to actually open the book and read some of my writing, and both of them bought it.

Today’s the second day. And I don’t want to jinx it, but I hope it goes as well or even better. I’m pretty sure (Though I am tired; it was a long day yesterday, and I woke up early this morning)  that I will do well again. And then I’m going to have to start looking for other opportunities to do this, because — I did this well.