Tag Tucson Festival of Books

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 Leave a comment

This morning I am proud.

I am proud of myself, for my writing, for my ideas, for my determination to see this through. I am proud of myself for thinking up Damnation Kane, for making the story and the character what they are: interesting enough to draw people in, good enough to keep them reading. I am proud of myself for giving myself writing deadlines and sticking to them. I am proud that I wrote this book. I am proud of myself for not pushing it aside when it wasn’t immediately successful. I am proud that I rewrote the book, added another 25% of new content, and then re-edited, re-formatted, and did everything else needed to make it publishable. I’m proud I looked into getting a booth at the festival, did the paperwork, paid the fee, and got everything set up so that I would have a good display and a good pitch. I’m proud that I was there both days, that I advertised to friends and coworkers and students, I’m proud that I sold out of books when there was only 40 minutes left on the second day, so I know I brought a good amount. I’m proud that I set a price that didn’t drive people away, that did make them pause for a moment (so I know it wasn’t too low), but that covered all of my expenses and even made me a profit.

I’m SO proud of my friend and colleague, Lisa Watson, for doing everything with me, especially when the books she was sharing are so much more personal: they are her lifetime of poetry, back to when she was a high school student, and they are as vulnerable and revealing as poetry always is, and she sold them to strangers, again and again and again. And then when she ran out of books to sell, she stayed in the booth just to support me while I kept selling. Even more than all of that, I’m proud of her for writing, for writing poetry, for writing beautiful poetry, for writing for all of her life, and for still writing.

I’m proud of our friend and fellow teacher Adriana King, for being the unstoppable force of organization and salesmanship, for creating a new business entirely herself, for putting together incredible, wonderfully professional materials, for working that fair for two days through sunburn and backache, for connecting with every author she could, for making contacts and getting leads, for being an inspiring entrepreneur. And for mastering the art of subtle business card handoffs. And for bringing a red Swingline stapler.

I am proud that I have done enough to win and deserve and keep the love of a woman like my wife. The only feeling deeper and larger than my pride is my gratitude to her for all that she gave me and all that she did for me that made all of this possible, every step of it. And the only feeling deeper and stronger than my gratitude to her is my love for her.

We won. And I am proud.

Now we have to do it again.

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.

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

Image result for damnation kane

This morning I’m thinking about selling books.

I’m going to be at the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend, March 2nd and 3rd, in a booth with my friend Lisa Watson. We call ourselves the Pirate and the Poet. (I’m the pirate. Did I mention that I wrote a book? Here it is.) I’m going to be trying to sell my book, in person, to random passersby.

I have no idea how to do that.

I know how to write. I know how to talk about writing.  I know how to describe the book quickly — it’s about an Irish pirate who travels through time from the 1600s to 2011, and ends up in Florida —  and how to do it more extensively. I have some comparable authors for my writing style, and some comparable books and movies for the themes and ideas of it.

But I don’t know how to sell it.

This is an ongoing problem, and I know it’s not just my problem. I’ve written four novels, and tried to get all of them published, tried to get all of them picked up by agents, and it’s never worked. I’ve never been able to sell my own stories well enough to get disinterested people to want them. Oh, I can sell books to people who know me; that’s always been my audience. But I can’t make the jump from friends  and family, to general public. I’ve been trying for fifteen years, and so far, pretty much nothin’.

So this weekend, I’m going to try again. I’ve got a booth, I’ve got a big sign, I’ve got bookmarks with my name and the book title printed on them. I’ve got 30 copies of my book ready to go. I’ve got a Square for my phone so I can take credit cards, and I’ve applied for both a sales tax reporting code and a business license (which it turns out I didn’t need– but I applied for it anyway!). I’ve even got a pirate hat and a decent pirate accent that I’m going to bust out for the people who come up to the booth and say, “Where’s the pirate?”

I am looking forward to this. My wife and my friends have told me that the worst that could happen is I spend time at a book festival, with my friends, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people who love books. They’re right, and I want to do that  — though the introvert in me wants to hide, hates the thought of spending my whole weekend out among people, wants to prepare every possible convenience to take with me so I have almost all of the comforts of home. But they’re also wrong, because the worst that could happen is that nothing even remotely hopeful comes of this: that nobody stops at my booth, that nobody asks about the book, that nobody buys it (other than my students, whom I appreciate for their support, but they’re still in my regular audience of “People who buy my books because they know me.), that this is yet another dead end in a career of them.

I don’t think that’s likely. But I can’t say it’s not possible.

Wish me luck.

Book Review: Platinum Magic by Bruce Davis

Dusty 1 Comment

Davis Platinum 150

Platinum Magic

by Bruce Davis

 

I recently bought four small-press novels at the Tucson Festival of Books; I’ve read three of them so far, and though I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, I have to say: I’m one for three. Two of those books are clearly self-published, because no publishing house, agent, or editor would take these books on: the writing isn’t good, the stories aren’t very good, the characters are terrible.

This one, however, is the good one.

All of those elements are, in this book, well done. The writing is quite good, the story is a lot of fun, the characters are excellent if a bit cliché. The best part of this book, actually, is the world-building: that’s often a sort of weak praise, as many authors – of all levels, professional, amateur, self-published or NYT bestsellers – specialize in the world-building more than the writing. I understand; the world-building is the fun part: you get to make stuff up, fix the problems you see in our world, add interesting things. It’s great, and a lot of authors let their imaginations run wild, usually without considering whether or not the world they create is at all realistic or plausible, or a good place to put a story – the Eragon series is a prime example of this, I think. Christopher Paolini wrote the first book when he was a teenager, and it reads like it: dragons are cool! Magic is cool! Sword-fighting is cool! And the hero (a teenaged boy – weird how that works) masters all three things in short order, and then flies off on his dragon to kick the world’s ass. Cool!

But also, lame.

Anyway, enough of other, worse books: Davis has done an excellent job with this world he’s created. He’s turned our world into a magic world – or perhaps a magic world into our world. The main characters are cops, investigating a murder case that has larger implications; and while those cops are dwarves and half-elves, and they use repeating crossbows rather than firearms, they still function like cops, in a world with precinct politics and public pressures and corruption and everything else that cops actually deal with. In some ways, this reads like a police procedural, just in a fantasy world. It reminded me quite a bit of Glen Cook’s Garret, P.I., series, in that the familiar tropes are put into an unfamiliar situation, and bring those old cliches to new life by doing so.

And just like the Cook series, this book has deep roots: there are political implications to the case these cops are investigating, and the political tensions between races and nations are built on a long history which slowly unfolds over the course of the book, just as it would in a novel with a real-world setting; that was well done. Though I will say that this element was also the source of my one complaint: though I appreciated Davis’s ability to avoid pages and pages of explication of his world’s history and politics, I was also quite confused early on in the story, as there were references made to old political alliances and upheavals that had strong implications in the story’s present, and I didn’t know what the hell the characters were talking about, which was annoying for a while. But it did all become clear in the end, so it was only a temporary annoyance.

I liked the mystery, particularly the twist Davis puts on it – no spoilers, but the perpetrators were involved with interdimensional travel and smuggling, which allowed Davis to step outside his own world, and gave a great surprise in the final conflict – and I really liked the characters, especially the main two cops, Simon Buckley and Haldron Stonebender. I thought the romance was a little too pat, a little too cliché, but it was sweetly written, nonetheless; Davis makes a nice point about love between different races which I liked. And I loved the use of orcs in this as second-class citizens, despised by the more powerful races, treated with deep suspicion and contempt by the cops, forced into ghettoes and menial labor and crime. Davis does what good fantasy should do: make a point about our world through the use of a fantasy lens that focuses our attention in a way that a more familiar setting might not be able to. He does it well, without making his allegory too on-the-nose; he just writes a good story, with some themes that should ring true even to those of us who aren’t part elven.

This book alone was worth the purchase of all four. I would definitely recommend it.

 

(The book is available here, if you’re interested; since this is the publisher, I expect the author gets the biggest return from this site’s sales.)