Publication Jitters

Volume XXVI, Issue Two | June 2025

The best thing about publishing a book—and the worst thing—is public appearances. I worry for weeks, months even, about whether anybody will show up at my signings, and whether I’ll bomb.

The signings for Tough Luck were great! We had nearly 250 at Douglas County Libraries. The room was filled at Covered Treasures in Monument. Readers came out to hear Melissa Payne, author of In the Beautiful Dark, and me talk about writing at a Hearthfire Books’-sponsored appearance at Evergreen’s arts center. My last stop was the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, where so many quilters and old friends came.

The turnout was more than satisfying. It is thrilling for authors to know that readers like their books well enough to come and hear them speak.

But it isn’t always that way, and that’s why we all get publication jitters.  I’ve had signings where nobody showed up.  It’s humiliating.  What do you say to the bookstore owner, who’s put up signs and set out cookies.  I remember a book tour in Northern California for Tallgrass some years ago.  The book is about a World War II Japanese relocation camp.  With so many Japanese-Americans in the San Francisco area, it made perfect sense to go there.  The trouble was, nobody had ever heard of me or the book. So no one showed up at one bookstore, and the rest of the signings were sparse at best.  I remember eight people at one shop, and one was a cousin. The highlight of the trip was sitting next to a woman reading one of my other books on the plane home.

Even worse, I’ve had signings where two persons showed up—and one had a manuscript under his arm that he wanted me to read.  It’s one thing to slink away because nobody’s come to hear you.  But what do you say to two persons?  It’s not as though you can give a speech.

Authors, then, are eternally grateful to anybody who shows up at a signing.  You’re immediately my best friend.  I’m not kidding.  My best friend from grade school and my best friend from junior high both attended signings this year.  Thanks, Karen and Diane.

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More About Names

Names Matter. They matter for writers. You know right away if the names of characters are Ryan and Megan that the book is set in contemporary times. So when you write historical fiction, you have to find names that are appropriate to the time period. I’ve written before about how important names are for characters, but I was reminded of it again recently when I read a little book entitled Shooting, Killings, and War Heros. It’s a history of Monument, Colo., and its cemeteries, that I picked up at a signing at Covered Treasures last month. The book has stories about early residents and facts about the cemetery, but what struck me was a list of first names of the deceased, culled from gravestones.

These are names that are no longer popular—women’s names such as Melvina, Elva, Geneva, Maudie, Charity, Nelda, Zenophen. And men’s names—Phineas, Josiah, Merlin, and Standley.

I’m about to start a book, but I’ve held off until I get the right name for my leading character. A friend of mine uses the names Mary and John for characters until the right names hit her. That way, she doesn’t have to spend time researching period names. I’ve tried that, but the fact is, if I name a character Mary, I immediately think of my sister Mary. Besides, I like researching old names. I have pages of names on my computer that I can draw on. That’s where I found the name Haidie for my character in Tough Luck. But I haven’t yet found the right name for the character in this new book I want to write, which will be set in 1910. I like my hairdresser’s name, but if I use it, I’ll immediately remember my failed attempt to grow out my hair. So I’m still looking. She won’t be named Melvina or Zenophen, but I might use those names for my secondary characters.

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Sandra’s Picks

In the Beautiful Dark

By Melissa Payne Lake Union

Since I appeared with Melissa Payne at a book signing this spring, I thought I ought to tell you about her book.

For 40 years, Birdie has mourned the death of Allison, the love of her life.

The night Birdie planned to admit her love, she came home to find Allison lying in the bathtub, dead. The police ruled suicide. Birdie knew it was murder. For the next four decades, while she raised Allison’s son, Birdie tried to prove that Allison’s death was the first murder of a serial killer known as the Vampire Killer. He murders his victims, then siphons out their blood.

Now, after an absence of years, the Vampire Killer appears to have struck again. And, although she lives in a retirement home and gets about with the aid of a walker, Birdie is determined to track him down. She enlists other “golden girls,” who are excited to take on a project using their unique skill. After mutilated animals—the murder’s signature—are found around the retirement home, Birdie suspects the killer might be one of them, and she worries that a young woman she’s taken under her wing could be the next victim.

In the Beautiful Dark is not only a first-rate soft mystery, but it takes a rare look into the lives of a retirement community. It examines the loneliness but also explores new friendships and the awareness that retirement isn’t the end of something but the beginning of a new life.

Birdie, a one-time stripper, is tough and determined but loving when it comes to her adopted son and to the down-and-out young woman she tries to protect. It’s nice to see a sleuth who isn’t young and agile, but old and decrepit, who still has it all together. Birdie is such a compelling figure, in fact, that readers will hope Payne brings her back for an “Over-the-Hill Gang” sequel, or even a series.