It has been a while since I've posted — on any of my blogs, actually. I've been wrapping up the second draft of Exile, the fourth in the Legacy of the Force series; finishing off a novel tends to occupy most of my time. There have been conventions in the mix as well (San Diego Comic-Con, which was also the last stop on my Betrayal book tour; Gen Con; Dragon*Con, which I leave for tomorrow morning).
     So the blogs fell by the wayside for a while.
     Speaking of the tour, this time around I wanted to talk about Things I Learned On My Book Tour.
     Every bookstore special events manager involved in the tour knew that I would be happy to do some combination of a reading, a talk, a question-and-answer session, and autographing. The question was this — what combination was best suited to each venue?
     Generally, I assumed that a reading was probably not well-suited to the situation. Sure, lots of fans like readings — they enjoy the opportunity to hear the writer reading his own words. (Even when the writer has a face suited to radio and a voice that belongs to silent film, as I do. But I digress.)
     However, while readings are appropriate for conventions and some bookstore events, I've never thought they were well-suited to Star Wars bookstore events. This is because the proportion of children attending these events can range from 30% to 70% of the audience, and children, by and large, aren't interested in sitting still while some bearded curmudgeon reads aloud from a book with no pictures in it. This is especially true when there are other diversions on hand, such as stormtroopers, Darth Vaders, Jedi, and Princess Leias to talk to and be photographed with, lightsaber duels to be conducted, and so forth, which was the situation at most of the signings I did.
     So I settled on a default format for the events: a talk (twenty to thirty minutes) about writing in the Star Wars universe, followed by a question and answer session (twenty to thirty minutes), followed by signing. (It was during the signing itself that the children would generally teleport off to be with the costumed folk.) I called or e-mailed each of the store special events coordinators in advance to make sure that this format would work with their specific clientele, and told them that I didn't feel the need to do a reading unless their patrons were specifically gung-ho about one.
     At the stores themselves, I discovered that the physical layout set up for me played a big part in how the events would unfold.
     At every event, the most crucial pieces of furniture were, of course, my table and chair — without them, it would be hard to do the autographing. But other furnishings largely dictated whether other portions of the event would come off.
     For instance, if there were rows of chairs out in front of the signing table, fans would occupy them before things got started and would be a ready audience for the talk and Q&A. But if there was simply a large open area in front of the table, with no chairs, the fans would distribute themselves through the store, many hovering at the edges of (but not venturing into) the open area, and as soon as I sat down would move up to form a line to get their books signed, meaning that there was no easy way to begin a talk and Q&A. At two events, we simply didn't do the talk because there was no structure under which it could be begun (without being pushy about it); at one of those, we did eventually do the Q&A, since some fans waited in the big open area after all the signing was done. But they had to stand, and I felt bad for them.
     The simple lesson here — more for special events coordinators than for me — is that if you want to have a talk, you need an environment that looks line a panel or seminar area... with seating. Attendees generally won't assemble to form a listening audience in an open area.
     I attended a small comic-books-and-gaming event last weekend, and was forewarned that some people would just want items signed, and others would like to ask a lot of questions about subjects such as game-writing. With my tour experience fresh in my mind, when I got to the event, I asked for four chairs to be brought out and set right in front of my signing table — two to the left, two to the right, with a big gap in between.
     And this worked out exactly as I predicted. People who wanted to talk came up and sat. People who wanted to get novels or game books signed walked up to the gap, not having to wait for a lengthy conversation to finish, and got their autographs right away — which the fans who wanted to talk didn't mind, since they knew they'd otherwise be monopolizing my time. It worked out quite well.
     All of this means very little, except that, at future conventions and book tours, I'll be able to predict more accurately how the store's setup will dictate which activities can take place and which can't. I may also be more assertive (that is, a pain in the tuchus) about those setups, should I want a specific activity to take place.
     So, there you go — a lot of words about a tiny factor in the publishing world that only writers and bookstore managers care about.