Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Book Signings

One of the more pleasant duties of being a published author is doing signings. It’s a time when I actually get to meet face to face with the people who are reading my books. It’s ego-boosting – which for someone engaged in an essentially lonely profession is marvelous – and sometimes useful, because I’ll get feedback about the direction I’m taking with my stories and/or characters. Even, once in a while, I’ll be offered a story idea or book title I can actually use. So I love to do book signings.

One of my favorites is an annual event, offered by a local mystery bookstore, Once Upon A Crime. Owners Pat and Gary call it Write of Spring, and this past Saturday was their ninth annual.

Minnesota is chock-a-block with authors, many of them mystery writers. No one seems sure why, but I think it has something to do with our long, dark winters. If you’re not a skier, a snowmobiler, or an ice fisherman, what else is there to do but write?

This year there were about fifty mystery authors in attendance at Write of Spring. We came in one-hour shifts, standing shoulder to shoulder behind a long table stacked with our books. The place was crowded with visitors, who munched on ginger cookies and lemonade while waiting to speak with a favorite author, buy a book or, in some cases, offer previously purchased books they brought along for autographs. At this point in my career, I have a long backlist, so I got to talk about not just my current Betsy Devonshire series, but also the Dame Frevisse medieval mystery series and even the Peter Brichter series I started with back in the 80s. One author who came in a little early for the second shift is dear friend Gail Frazer, with whom I collaborated on the Dame Frevisse series. Pat had a set of the six books we wrote together (Gail continued the series alone later) to be sent to a collector. She wanted us to autograph them, both with our mutual pseudonym and our “real name.”

That raised a question for me: What is my real name? That is, I have a legal name, the one I married into, but not many people know or use it. I have a “professional” name, my maiden name, the one I started writing under. And I have a current pseudonym, the one most of my readers know me by. I decided to go with the professional name.

One thing I noticed about the books, which began appearing in 1992 as paperback originals, is that the pages are already turning brown. Before too long, they will crumble. Now it has been my position that one problem with e-books is that, as the technology changes, the ones coming out now will be unreadable and volumes will be lost. But looking at the browning pages of Margaret Frazer’s books, I realized that time will render them unreadable, too. There’s something sad, even tragic, about that. Not that I write deathless prose, but there is value in even the common literature of a culture and its loss is real.

10 comments:

Linda O. Johnston said...

The Once Upon A Crime event sounds like fun, Monica--if that's your name today! I haven't taken a pseudonym yet but wonder how I'll handle it if I ever do. You obviously handle it well, even if you have to stop and think now and then which name to use.

Julie said...

The funniest thing that I had to do when using my pseudonymm Lucy Hamilton, was to practice signing it, so when I did book signings, it would look right. It remained a lot more legible than my actual signature, but I did practice it. And I was laughing to myself even as I did.
I'd love to have your signature on a book, Monica, whichever name you used.

Monica Ferris said...

Julie, you're making me think I should hold another contest, with the prize being an autographed book. I'll have to think about that, decide what the parameters and rules might be.

Any suggestions from anyone?

signlady217 said...

The deterioration of books--such a sad thing to see. It always bothers me when I see/hear a news story about a fire or flood destroying a library or other building housing historical documents; even reading about historical events like the long-ago sack of Alexandria or the burning of Rome is hard to take!

Monica Ferris said...

Signlady, I wish very hard for there to be time travel so someone can go back and snatch priceless documents from the flames.

Betty Hechtman said...

I think writing under a pseudonym must be confusing. I know a number of writers who do and I have trouble keeping all their names straight.

Monica Ferris said...

I have trouble keeping other author's pseudonyms straight, but not my own. I know who I really am; the other names are like actor's roles I put on for signings or while giving talks. Like the fancy hats I wear to them, I take them off when the event is over and revert to who I really am.

Julie said...

Monica, I can identify with the hats. When I was writing full-time and had a small daughter, and was doing all the mom-of-a-small-daughter things, I had two wardrobes. One was Julie's stuff, which ran heavily to jeans and tee-shirts, and the other, much smaller, was Lucy's stuff to wear for signings and speeches and such. Gotta tell you, Lucy dressed a lot better!

Monica Ferris said...

I hear you, Julie! My daily wardrobe runs heavily to slacks and tops, with a few casual skirts and some shorts for summertime. Then there's the Monica Ferris wardrobe, with suits and matching outfits and a couple dozen fancy hats. Though I do dip into that wardrobe for church on Sundays.

C said...

This is a late comment to this post, but it reminded me to "catch up" on spraying my newer additions to my collection of books with scrapbooking acid buffer/archival spray. It does the same job on book paper as it does for making newspaper clips etc safer and longer lasting for scrapbooking.
I reread my favorite books multiple times while I am waiting for the next installments from my favorite authors and want these 'old friends' to last at least as long as I do. :)

I just came across this blog today and am happy to find it. Each of you authors here has your own shelf in my book collection and here you all are in one place blogging together--how fun!