4 October

Fall, the Dairy Barn. The Guerrilla Book Signing

by Jon Katz
Fall, the Dairy Barn

Stopped off at Barnes & Noble in Saratoga tonight to warn them that Rose and Maria and I are coming by at 5 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, the official publication date of “Rose In A Storm.” They had some books just being put out and I signed a few and we drew a small crowd right away, just a few people. I am having fun putting together an off-the-grid book signing and possibly a talk without any involvement from publicists, publishers or bookstore executives. I always come by that store on pub date, and they always have a pile of books waiting for me to sign.

I told the staff tonight that I was coming in with Rose and expected a small number of people, perhaps five to ten, to come in around 5. The event was not announced or publicized anywhere but on my Facebook page and this blog and a lot of people are at work. If there is a crowd, we can sneak over to the cafe and I’ll do a short reading and talk. Rose will be there, and we’ll see how long she lasts. She’s unpredictable. I took her to one reading once, and she was not happy. But she does settle down, and we’ll see.

I think the creative challenge of writers – artists too, perhaps – is to make their own news and fight for their works. The “Rose” tour is very interactive, somewhat experimental. We want to see how the mix of media, photography, computing, social media, bookstores all interact to promote a book. This book has a lot of talking points – Rose, the farm, the real mind of a dog, our emotional connections to them. My publisher has long argued that I put too much information on the blog – people will have no reason to buy my books. I don’t agree.  I also see that tools like Facebook are invaluable to writers like me, trying to break through in an election year news avalanche. So this will be interesting.

Tomorrow is an unofficial event. It never happened. I didn’t go, Rose wasn’t with me, I didn’t sign books, and I didn’t give a talk. Sounds like fun to me. First, I’m going to Albany to appear on WAMC around 2:30 during their fund-raising drive. Make your own news.

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