Bookstore Event Etiquette:
Brilliant article by Kevin Sampsell, one of the events managers at Powells Books in Portland, on how to not make an ass of yourself (authors and audiences) at bookstore events. My favorites…
Author:
Don’t go on forever. This is one the most common mistakes of the author and probably one of the reasons why more people don’t go to literary events. Listening to someone read for longer than 15 minutes can be like watching C-SPAN. There are only a handful of folks who are capable of entertaining an audience for that long.
Sometimes it’s best to get the Q&A going before folks start dozing. Be mindful of when the store is When it gets to the book signing part, don’t gab to every fan for five minutes.
Audience:
Don’t bring weird gifts. A few years back, a fan gave David Sedaris a hideous sculpture of a naked person. How he was going to take this on an airplane was probably not considered. After the reading, Mr. Sedaris kindly asked me to dispose of the statue and some of the other “gifts” he had received, including home-baked foods (suspicious), vanity press books (sad) and a T-shirt (I’ve noticed that people who give authors T-shirts are usually affiliated with some kooky political group).
When we hosted Jane Fonda last year, one man gave her snapshots of himself standing next to her, posed with a shy but excited grin. (In the photo, Fonda doesn’t seem to know he’s there, she’s looking off in a totally different direction). Those photos were left behind, along with a postcard from someone who wrote, “I apologize for my offensive behavior. Please forgive me.”
(via Readerville)