After having just spent a day in the bustling metropolis of Harker Heights at their library’s “Author Fair” where the majority of the writers were self-published, I think there’s a lot of truth to what this guy says. I think until an author gets out into the “real world” and begins having conversations with readers, most of what we think we know about writing is “in our heads.”

It’s disheartening to sit next to someone who has poured their hearts and souls and MONEY into self-publishing a book, only to watch as people walk by, maybe pick up their book, maybe not, and them have to deal with the reality of rejection. I chose to sit next to a woman today whose book had the word “God” in the title because I thought it’d be nice to have a little “religion” section, since my book is about, well, you know what my book’s about.

And bless her heart, she said to me she sent out 25 personal invitations to friends to let them know about the book signing. And it got to be about 11:45 (we’d been there since 9) and not one of her friends showed up. I told her it was a Saturday and they were all late sleepers and probably wouldn’t get there before noon. At exactly 12:05, one of her friends showed up, another at 12:15, and another at 12:45 (the event ended at 1, thank heavens).

I spent most of the time addressing envelopes to send out my book cover postcards because I recently got the annual roster of The Texas Jewish Historical Society, so I’ve been spamming, I mean strategic targeted mailing, that’s it, my postcards to these folks since they’re, well, you know, probably interested in Texas Jews and my audience.

She told me right off the bat that everyone was her audience because, you know, we’re all Christians. I just looked at her and didn’t say anything, just quietly put up my nice huge foam board poster, which features my book cover, “There’s Jews in Texas?”