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The hardest part about being an author isn't writing the book, it's getting attention for it. I'm starting a Patreon to pay for publicists next year when I have books coming out. And I'm trying something different with the tier pricing to make things fair

Heavily edited image from Harley MS 3244 f061v (BLM) Image description: 13th century illustration of a man desperately showing an open book to a mythical winged beast who is so uninterested it has turned away and stuck its own tail in its ear. As any novelist will tell you: the hardest part of being an author isn’t writing the book, it’s selling it to readers who are inundated with choice. I’m…

Agnes O’Malley Marx in the Los Angeles Daily News, 1954. The early moving picture industry offered opportunity to diverse workers: immigrants, women, and people of color more easily found jobs and opportunities for growth and leadership in the new field. Those with creativity, ambition, and drive could succeed unlike in more settled and traditional fields. Like other young women, Pennsylvania…

Now the publicists are feeling the "pinch" due to the craziness going on in Hollywood 😵‍💫😭

by Moira Macdonald Seattle Times arts critic

What if you gave a book signing and nobody came?

That’s what happened, more or less, to new author Chelsea Banning, who took to Twitter in despair in December when only two people came to the launch of her fantasy novel “Of Crowns and Legends” at an Ohio bookstore, even though nearly 40 had said they would come. “Kind of upset, honestly, and a little embarrassed,” she tweeted after the event.

And then suddenly everyone showed up: The tweet went viral and the replies began. “I did a signing to which Nobody came, except a guy who wanted to buy some Scotch tape and thought I was the help,” wrote Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood. “I did a book reading where only my husband’s cousin showed up,” tweeted Min Jin Lee, whose bestselling novel “Pachinko” was a National Book Award finalist and became an Apple TV+ series. “At my first SALEM’s LOT signing, I had one customer,” wrote megabestselling author Stephen King — a kid who asked if King could point him to the “Nazi books.” And Jodi Picoult, author of multiple bestsellers, tweeted that “I have sat lonely at a signing table many times only to have someone approach … and ask me where the bathroom was.”

Banning, whose second book signing sold out, is now feeling much better, writing on Twitter that she was “overwhelmed by all the love and encouragement in these replies.” But her thread served as a bigger reminder: In-person author appearances are back in local bookstores, after a long pandemic absence. And for every standing-room-only reading featuring a massively well-known name, there might be a quiet event, with empty chairs outnumbering occupied ones.