Pushing Paper

My husband jokes that writing books is like trying to invent the next buggy whip when the automobile age has arrived. “Books are a dying industry.” He is forgiven because (a) he reads almost as much as I do, though, yes, he’s all about his Kindle and I-pad and audio books; (b) he buys me “antiquated” paper books every single holiday and birthday; and (c) he only makes this joke when he’s going into his Protect-My-Wife-from-Delusions-Certain-to-Yield-Depression-When-Reality-Hits mode. For example, he might say this right after I’ve written a first draft and am imagining who'll star in the movie version of my best-selling novel. It’s not a bad thing to be married to a realist, especially since he doesn’t complain (much) about the hours I devote to tweaking my buggy whips books.

E-books, Borders’ bankruptcy and the sad fact that there is now ONE book store (not counting used book stores) in my city of 100,000 people . . . well, maybe those things should concern me more, but they don’t. People still love to read. Including the next generation.

For the next five days, I’ll be devoting myself to the annual book fair at my children’s elementary school. I’ll be pushing good old-fashioned paper books. And while the regional book fair rep is sure to be totally disappointed by the complete lack of glitter, foam board and painted decorations I’ve made (very her thing, very not mine), I’m going to sell about $8,000 worth of books in a school of less than 200 kids in three days. At least, that’s the goal. Delusional? I do sometimes over-dream, but we’ve done it before.

In lieu of decorations, I cajole local authors to come visit and sign their books. I comb the kid lit blogs for reviews to print out for parents and teachers. These are especially necessary to display near good books with unfortunate titles or covers (there are some).

I try to make sure that if I haven’t read one of the books we sell, I at least have some knowledge about it. I also get kids to write reviews, and I grill our librarian on what’s hot for what grades.*

 

Then, my co-chair (who rocks all things organization and accounting) and I pay close attention to “buzz.” It’s fascinating to watch which books kids clamor for. One year, everybody got into Jeff Smith’s Bone series. Another year they all wanted Calvin and Hobbes.

No matter what they choose, generous parents have made it possible for every child to go home with a book. And I go home hoarse, exhausted, but totally excited about the buggy whip industry and its power to change a child. 

*Plus, we get sixth-graders to dress as Clifford, and we provide donuts! Donuts! Lest I give the impression that I'm above "Come into my lair the spider said to the fly" marketing tactics. I'm not. Oh wait, the donuts are only ingested with parent permission. There's a big battle about sugar at school right now. I don't even eat refined sugar. Maybe I should rethink the donuts . . . Ugh. Moral dilemma.