What Makes a Good Book Event

Upcoming events, hell gigs, and my criteria for a good event

An opportunity. To what? To make money? Perhaps. To lose money? Perhaps. To 'indulge' and to 'learn' about ourselves? Perhaps. So fucking what? What isn't? They're an opportunity. That's all they are. They're an event. 

Glengarry Glen Ross

What I want from a book event is pretty straightforward: a chance to talk up my novel with a receptive audience. That is, people who buy similar books, and are considering buying mine.

That sounds straightforward, but a lot of events are not structured that way. A panel with twelve authors all jockeying “to get their shit in,” readings that go on for hours, the “this is more of a statement than a question” guy, a moderator who thinks this is their big moment to extemporize…

I’ve done some ‘hell gigs.’ A few that stand out:

1. A library event where the furnace was broken and the temperature hovered one degree below where the staff had to legally evacuate the building. Three people in attendance, one of whom a racist who didn’t like the Jeff Chen character and was happy to explain why. (“They just like talking to salesmen.”)

2. A lit fest in a convention center under renovation. The auditorium, the book sales room, and the signing table were nowhere near each other. Took almost two months to get paid.

3. A book launch where, in the middle of my reading, the owner of the bar decided to take a very loud phone call. “Yeah, there’s some book thing going on here right now…”

(Feel free to share your own worst experiences in the comments)

I’ve also been privileged to be part of some great events. (What makes a great event? An audience, a bookseller, a reading less than five minutes*, clean moderation, and a convivial setting.)

(* Not a hell gig, but there was a Noir at the Bar where one author did ten minutes of preamble, followed by a fifteen minute reading. Prick move.

My rule is, whatever time you’re allotted, cut it by half. Nobody ever wished a reading went longer.)

Anyway, April and May are book promo season. My goal with all events is to make each fun, worthwhile, and different from the others.

APRIL 10^th I’ll be reading as part of Noir at the Bar Seattle, the Left Coast Crime edition. 8pm at the Suite Bar in the Bellevue Hyatt, with SJ Rozan, Roz Ray, and others.

I will be around Left Coast Crime, which runs April 10^th to 14^th in Seattle.

APRIL 23^rd: I’ll be reading from Ocean Drive at Book Warehouse Main Street, with Eve Lazarus, one of the great Vancouver crime historians. Our VPL event last year was a lot of fun, and this should be even better. Doors at 6:30, event starts at 7pm

https://www.blackbondbooks.com/events/20240423

APRIL 24^th I’m doing a Zoom Event for Whodunit Books in Winnipeg, one of the best mystery shops in North America. 7pm Central Time, 5pm Pacific.

https://whodunitbooks.ca/events/20240424

MAY 4^th, White Rock event, details TBA

May 8^th is the launch for Ocean Drive and A Lonesome Place for Dying. Like the Sunset and Jericho launch, it will be held in the basement room at the Irish Heather, 248 E Georgia St. Pulp Fiction Books will be on hand to sell copies of both novels, and yes, Nolan Chase will be there as well.

In June I have two events at Albany Books in Tsawassen and Langley, and a walking tour, and there will be more stuff announced, I’m sure.

Ocean Drive comes out April 20^th in Canada, sometime in the fall in the States, but is already on the BC Bestseller List. That’s an achievement. (Or a result of the publisher shipping the books early to get them out before Spring Break and Easter.)

A Lonesome Place for Dying comes out May 7th and has picked up some rave reviews already, comparing it to the Longmire and Jesse Stone series. The audiobook has just been announced, read by Kevin T Collins.

(Note to booksellers and book club organizers: both myself and Mr. Chase are available for events. Late May and June are filling up reasonably fast. I’m not sure how I’ll differentiate Chase events from Sam Wiebe events—maybe change my walk out music to the Every Which Way But Loose theme song…)

I will be doing my best to make it out to every bookshop in the lower mainland that carries these. If you want a signed copy, contact your local or drop by. And if you’re out of town, Pulp Fiction will ship signed copies pretty much anywhere.

Thanks.

Postscript: I actually kind of enjoy hell gigs—if an event can’t go well, I’d almost prefer it to go legendarily bad. You learn to be professional by dealing with unprofessional stuff, and you have something to talk about.

Nobody wants to hear about the event that went swimmingly.