I got the message from the “Mockingbird Marathon: To Kill a Saturday” organizers the other day, that the event will be relocated from Townsend Park Bakery to the Stuyvesant Plaza Book House this coming Saturday. Okay, now there’s parking available, which is good.
There’s been a lot of great things involving the Mockingbird Marathon, at least from my personal perspective. I’ve been able to honor those who have inspired me as a writer – from authors like Harper Lee to high school teachers like Bonnie Diefendorf.
And moving the event to the Book House – well, that adds one more bonus.
And for that, we have to climb into the wayback machine and travel to the summer of 2001.
I had just finished writing and publishing my record collector’s guide, “Warman’s American Records 1950-2000,” and like any published author, I dreamed of what it would be like for me to actually have a book signing.
The problem was – I had absolutely no idea how to arrange a book signing of my own. My publisher at the time wasn’t very helpful – they said that if I got a bookstore to agree to a book signing, they would send the books.
But how to get a book store to get involved in this…
And at the time, I asked around. Who would be interested in hosting an unknown author with a guide on how to find rare 45’s and LP’s?
At that time, I approached Susan Novotny, the owner of the Stuyvesant Plaza Book House. She seemed interested in the idea – especially since I was a local author – but she said that people don’t just put a sign on the front of the book store and say “author signing today,” and draw a crowd. If I was going to have a book signing, I needed to get the word out.
And for me – that meant going for the free media. Literally. Cause I had no advertising budget to speak of.
I called in some favors. Last Vestige Music Store in Albany agreed to open their store at 6am, so that WRGB reporter Shawn Killinger could do a live remote about record collecting for the Channel 6 morning show. I pulled out some rare records for demonstration, including the David Allan “Pick-A-Show” record, my picture disc of the Boston LP, and my copy of Bryan Adams’ disco record. Yes, Bryan Adams had a disco record. It’s rare. And I have a copy. And no, you can’t have it.
Now for the next step. I contacted the producers of the Don Weeks Show on WGY – and in the span of a couple of days, I was on with Uncle Don and talking about rare records and how to find them and what to look for.
And then the final step. I got in touch with Greg Haymes, who at the time wrote a column for the Times Union’s Thursday arts section. He agreed to run a piece in his arts column, it’s archived at this link. Of course, showing him that a picture of Blotto’s debut EP was in the book didn’t hurt any…
In other words, your man used the local media to his advantage.
And on Saturday, August 25, 2001, I had a decent-sized line at the Book House. People brought their records for me to evaluate and appraise. Others asked questions about which Beatles records are the rarest, or whether all those old Frank Sinatra LP’s their parents collected are worth anything today.
And they bought the book.
Lots of them bought the book.
This was major. The Book House set up everything in the store – they had the books on display, they had signage in the windows, it was wonderful. I still have great memories of how well the event went.
And of the two boxes of books that the publisher shipped; only about three copies went unsold at the end of the event. That lasted a few seconds – the Book House actually bought the final copies, asked me to autograph them, and then added a “signed by author” sticker on each one, and put them out for purchase. Smooth.
When my second guide was published in 2004, I again chose the Book House for my first signing for that title. Again, everything went perfectly. Susan Novotny and her staff may have organized hundreds of book signings for a legion of authors, but as far as I was concerned, they treated me as if I was the most important book signer they had ever had. And maybe they treat everybody else the same way. But I’m glad they treated me that well.
So yeah, I’m kind of excited that the Mockingbird Marathon is moving to the Book House. This is truly a good thing. A really good thing.
Chuck The Writer 