Whew!
I’ve just done author events at six different Waterstones in a fortnight. I’ve done Newton Mearns, Stirling, Ayr, St Andrews, East Kilbride and Inverness. West, South, East, and North. All lovely shops, all with lovely (bookloving) booksellers.
But it can be fairly nerve-shredding, sitting, on your own, in a shop, waiting to see if anyone can be bothered turning up to listen to you read. (Though someone always did! Which always feels like a miracle, especially on all these beautifully sunny days we’ve been having!)
But I think it’s important to get in about bookshops and support them (and don’t worry, I’m not just doing Waterstones – the Waterstones clustered together in July, but I’m doing two independent bookshops this summer too, and more in the autumn I hope.)
I know you can buy books online, but you can’t chat to a bookseller online, or flick through the book, or just see what catches your eye on the shelf. And you can’t meet an author online either, not in the same way.
So bookshops and authors are going to have to offer bookbuyers something more than online buying can, and me sitting there reading The Big Bottom Hunt to four year olds, or telling an Inuit sea legend which inspired Storm Singing to ten year olds, is one of those ‘something more’s!
And it gives me a chance to meet you – meet readers, meet parents, meet teachers on holiday, and perhaps meet a few kids who have never heard of my books, but who heard this loud voice from the back of the store, and just wandered up to see who it was. That’s possibly one of the best reasons for visiting bookshops! (And also one of the reasons why my voice is a bit croaky today!)
So, that was my fortnight of Waterstones. Next week is my week of clowns, then after that, it’s my week of caves. (Caves and clowns? Yes, really, check out my diary if you don’t believe me!)
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