Two women in short-haired furs were the first unwitting critics to come upon my maiden book signing at high noon on a weekday during the Christmas rush.
The women, a mother and daughter, entered while engaged in conversation and nearly stubbed their toes on my literary debut.
In their attempts not to appear clumsy, they feigned interest in my work.
The mother picked it up for inspection. Her lips and tongue handled the title as if it were something crude on her soup spoon.
” `The Pied Pipers of Rock `n` Roll`?,” she inquired icily. ” `Radio deejays of the 50`s and 60`s`?”
The daughter, late teens, early 20s, rolled her eyes. Obviously she had witnessed this sort of matriarchal inquisition before.
”Name some deejays I would know from the `50s and `60s,” the mother commanded.
Where did she live in the `50s and `60s? I asked.
”New York,” she said.
Alan Freed? Cousin Brucie? Murray the K?
Not the faintest glimmer of recognition.
”Obviously, it was not my era,” she sniffed.
She turned to the daughter.
”Well, would you like one as a Hanukkah gift?” mother inquired.
”No,” came the certain reply.
They moved on.
Months and months of solitary work-library marathons, cross-country plane flights, long-distance telephone calls and predawn engagements with a word processer-came down to this: my naked ego spread out like a carcass on a folding table 10 paces from the front door of Kroch`s & Brentano`s at 516 N. Michigan Ave.
It was not as though I had come unprepared to be publicly ripped and devoured. My wife`s goodbye as I departed that morning had been a mocking admonition, ”Don`t get writer`s cramp, honey.”
Even in the research and writing of the book, I had experienced the sort of rejection endemic to any but the most famous authors.
”Hello.”
”Is Mr. Chuck Berry there?”
”This is him.”
”Uh, hi, your secretary said she`d tell you I was calling. I`m writing a book ab-. . .”
”I know who you are. I`m eatin` ”
”Oh, sorry. When can I call back?”
”Call back when I ain`t eatin`. ”
”Click.”
Aware that the public, not to mention my immediate family, had yet to stumble upon my greatness, I really had not expected to be granted a book signing. But when the opportunity came, it was immediately embraced as long overdue.
How could a small-town boy pass up a chance to have his work featured in the windows of a Michigan Avenue store, displayed on the Magnificent Mile in company with Gucci bags, Tiffany jewels and countless Erte reproductions?
Think of an aspiring musician who had learned only one song, but somehow been invited to play it at The Apollo Theater.
Right. Fools and their egos walk where angels fear to tread.
Upon learning that Kroch`s was eager to be the first to present my work to the masses, I remembered the cold words once voiced by the manager of the same bookstore, ”We find that signings for first authors can often be embarrassing for the author and for the store.”
Coworkers, upon learning of the event, presented me in advance with a copy of a Spy magazine article entitled, ”Oh, And Mr. Faulkner? Could You Make It Out To Sandi?”
The tone of the article was typical of the magazine`s (and my colleagues`) maim and gouge satire. The theme was that only literary poseurs hold book-signings anymore, and that it takes star-power, not word-power to draw a crowd.
It began:
Once upon a time, book signings were special events, providing an uncommon opportunity for the writer to engage those faceless readers with whom he has already communed, and to enrich their lives more deeply by signing their copies of his work. But that was back when writers were writers. Today writers are, at most, celebrities, and book signings are merely a device to lure the sometime reader into so alien a place as a bookstore.
The Spy story tailed eight author-celebrities to their New York book-signings. The first was Jay McInerney, who had hardly had time to come to grips with the celebrityhood brought on by his best-selling first novel,
”Bright Lights, Big City,” before his failed second effort, ”Story of My Life,” had the hounds gnawing at his kneecaps.
The Spy article reported gleefully that McInerney signed only 8 to 10 books, whined that his name was misspelled on store posters, then called the
”21 Club” for a reservation and fled in a silver limousine.
Other dim literary lights Spy-ed upon in the story were comedian George Burns (400 books sold), ”The Avenger” actor Patrick Macnee (200), singer David Crosby (300), Warhol hanger-on Ultra Violet (fewer than 30), U.S. Congresswoman Pat Schroeder (2), Donald Trump (300), and rocker Frank Zappa
(500).
Royko reminisces
The evil snickering in the magazine piece sent me looking for solace among other newspapermen who moonlight as authors.
Mike Royko, fresh from a series of signings for his new bestseller, ”Dr. Kookie, You`re Right,” offered his experiences, as the eagle rarely does to the sparrow.
”I`ve never found autographing books to be a chore,” he said. ”I get to joke with the readers, most of whom are bright or they wouldn`t be reading me, and they find that I`m not an ogre. Also, every time I sign a book, my mental cash register rings.”
Royko is obliging at book signings, he said.
”Some people bring cameras, and we have the store employee take our picture. One bold but pretty young thing asked if I would pose kissing her cheek. I told her, `Sex is okay, but no kissing.`
”That is my naughty old man routine,” he said.
Royko, who has long championed the cause of the working man, said the best autographing session he has ever attended was at a five and dime store.
”When `Boss` (his chronicle of Mayor Richard J. Daley) came out in paperback, the manager of Woolworth`s on State Street called, said it was just a long shot, but would I consider doing a paperback signing? After my standard gag-`I only initial paperbacks`-I agreed. I was there about four hours and the line wrapped halfway around the block.
”It was great because these were low-income people-many city hall clerks, etc.-who don`t have the outrageous price of hardcover books,” he said.
As one who writes with a full-loaded pen, Royko has to keep an eye out at book-signings for the dangerously wounded, he said.
”About the only bad moments I have are when a strange one hangs around. Some guy with a glazed or wild look in his eye who lurks nearby, mumbling about how somebody is talking to him through a filling in his tooth,” Royko said. ”I always figure out which way I`ll dive if he pulls out a meat cleaver.”
Royko`s national reknown virtually guarantees that he will draw a crowd whether signing his latest book or trying to have a quiet drink. Other authors, especially those just starting out on literary careers, are more likely to draw blank stares.
Tribune executive editor Jack Fuller, whose four works of serious fiction have been well-received commercially and critically (and right they were, Mr. Fuller, sir) recalled that he sat undisturbed at one of his first book signings until an older couple approached him.
As the author sat expectantly with pen in hand, the husband flipped slowly through the book for several moments before turning to his wife and saying, ”Can you believe how much they`re asking for this (expletive)?”
Columnist Bob Greene, author of 10 books including the national bestseller ”Be True To Your School,” said that his earliest experiences at book-signings also were humbling.
”When I first started doing book signings, I had this starry-eyed idea that throngs of people would line up in department stores to meet an `author,` no matter who the author was-even if he was merely me. I quickly learned otherwise,” Greene said.
”At a signing for my first book-I was 23 years old-I sat behind a table in a store in some city for two hours, and the only people who stopped were older women asking me where the cookbook section was.
”I sold zero of my own books that day. Now I always figure, no matter how badly a book signing goes, at least there will never be a day when I sign fewer books than on that day.
”Zero is a record that can`t be broken-unless readers show up with copies of some of your other books, wanting their money back.”
Judy Krug, assistant vice president for marketing of Kroch`s & Brentano`s 19 stores, agreed that it takes a certain amount of established celebrityhood to draw a crowd to a book-signing.
Krug believes book-signings began to fade as literary events and transform into celebrity-love-ins with the rise of Jacqueline Susann, the late author of ”The Valley of the Dolls,” and a pioneer of the modern-day blockbuster sex-packed novel.
”She was the first such author to break out and get on television and the talk shows,” said Krug, a 20-year veteran of the book beat. ”She was also part of the celebrity circle, and she attracted that kind of following.” Although in the Chicago area, there are ”author-driven” book stores-such as Barbara`s Books and the Guild Bookstore-that disdain any writers other than genuine literary stars, the marketing appeal of the pop-novelist or celebrity-author is considerable: They bring in the buyers.
”Three days before the publisher called and asked for a signing, I had no idea who Leo Buscaglia was,” recalled Krug. ”But he attracted so many people we had to keep the store open two hours longer.”
The indiscriminately embracing author of ”Living, Loving, Learning,”
helped Kroch`s sell ”thousands” of books that day and inspired a virtual literary orgy, Krug said.
”He hugged everyone who bought a book, and people in line were hugging each other and making friends and exchanging phone numbers to the point that several suggested we hold a reunion for them in a year.
”We even had two mounted police officers double-park their horses out front to run in and get their hugs,” said Krug.
The less-huggable, but no-less-alluring Mr. T was granted perhaps the ultimate in book-signing accommodations by Kroch`s when the book store chain opened its Jackson Street store on a Saturday just for his appearance.
Slighty lower on the macho scale, but with his own substantial following was singer/songwriter Barry Manilow, whose fans began lining up at 5 p.m. on the night before his scheduled book-signing at noon the next day. Krug instructed her staff to peddle the pop singer`s book to the mob on the street so his fans would have something to read overnight.
More recently, Kroch`s hosted comedian Roseanne Barr and her lovemate, Tom Arnold, for a signing of Barr`s autobiography. The couple were fresh off an appearance on the ”Oprah Winfrey Show” in which they bared the twin tattoos on their derrieres (off-camera).
They had also received an early morning call from WLUP deejay Jonathon Brandmeier in which the couple made no effort to cover up the fact that they had been caught in flagrante delicto. Their mutual affection was amply-displayed in front of the hundreds who came for the book-signing as well.
”Luckily, it was an adult crowd,” said Krug.
By comparison, serious authors such as Saul Bellow often draw less substantial numbers to their book-signings, but, Krug said, ”We will be selling Saul Bellow`s books a lot longer down the road than we will be selling Mr. T`s book.”
Celebrity sidekick
Faced with the public`s vast ignorance of my fame, I shanghaied a real celebrity to lure the masses to my first book-signing. I persuaded the legendary radio deejay Dick Biondi (who is profiled in my book and is now with Chicago radio station WJMK 104.3 FM), to bolster my drawing power.
That strategy worked, as Biondi`s fans accounted for the great bulk of those who came, though it was not that I didn`t have my own adoring public to cater to.
Those drawn by my aura of celebrity included a Chicago bank vice president who once dated my Aunt Peggy, a woman who rides my bus (she didn`t buy the book, just wanted to say hello), and three coworkers who planned to write off the price of the book on their income taxes.
By the final count, my maiden book signing was an enormous success. True, I outsold neither George Burns nor Frank Zappa, but I did outdraw Jay McInerney and Congresswoman Schroeder. Furthermore, astute critics have assured me that my work will be on the shelves at least 15 minutes longer than that of the celebrated Ultra Violet.
