What brings this topic up? Well, I'm doing a book signing on Friday at the Midwest Booksellers' Association cocktail party in St. Paul, MN. For a half an hour, I will be signing books and chatting with booksellers. Or trying to chat.
I started dreading this two weeks ago. I've signed at a bookseller event before and it went fine. I've signed at a librarians convention and made a great contact. I've signed at bookstores and at big mass author signings at RWA and RT. It's not like I'm floundering into uncharted territory, yet signings get harder and harder for me each time I do one. I don't know why. Shouldn't they be getting easier? Logic says yes, at least to me.
So right now I'm worried about:
- Driving through all that traffic on a Friday afternoon. Will I be late?
- Getting lost. I'm a Minneapolis girl; St. Paul is foreign ground and confusing.
- Finding some place to park. See number 2 about not knowing St. Paul or the area.
- Finding the place where I'm supposed to be. Couldn't find the RWA table at the librarians' event and was running late because of construction messing up traffic. I made it with seconds to spare and was totally stressed.
- Talking to strangers without sounding like a complete idiot. I'll settle for only sounding like a partial idiot.
- Misspelling someone's name.
- Trying to talk while I'm signing. I can't do this. I always stop and talk and am quiet while I sign, but with only a half an hour and free books, I'm guessing I'll have to be faster.
- Knocking something over. My books, someone else's books. When I get anxious, I become clumsier and I can be pretty clumsy to begin with.
So if you're a bookseller coming to the cocktail party at MBA, I apologize in advance for my dorkiness. I just can't seem to help it.
