Or the Amusing and Ambiguous Exercise of Signing Sessions
Rule number one: signing books is fun.
(Establishing rule number one firmly in your mind is useful after several hours, when you can barely spell complicated names like “Fred” or “John”, and someone with an eighteen syllable first name comes up and requests a panorama of the seige of Minas Tirith, this is what allows you to flash a winning smile (or at least not a world-weary, withering and lidded stare) and convince them they REALLY wanted just a signature…
The nightmare of every hopeful author/illustrator/perpetrator of something printed, bound and available sitting at a table with a wee sign propped in front proclaiming name and title is to be stranded somewhere miserably waiting for some kind soul to rescue them. Every potential buyer who strays to within talking distance of the table is like a long-awaited sail on the horizon (except in bookshops it is not customary to light signal fires and wave your shirt on a stick). When they turn aside you are alone again, a castaway in your own little Bermuda triangle of the soul.
My first signature session in Neuchâtel was exactly that. Happily, I was not marooned alone, but it was an ordeal nonetheless. As I recall, there were four of us: one well-known local singer/author (the big name present), one local cartoonist, one very local author of a book on a very local subject and me. We were still new to Neuchâtel at the time, and I was not accustomed to the legendary well… discretion… of people here. Customers would actually make a wide detour through the back of the bookshop so as not to approach the table where we were, as if there was some sort of fatal zone into which they might stray and be obliged to buy a book, or even worse, strike up a conversation. (Sponanaety is definitely something the Swiss are renowned for.) The local singer/author sold at least a dozen books, all to people he knew, the cartoonist, whose bravado I could only admire, went and collared customers in all corners of he shop, the local author and I just cringed. The cartoonist bought one of my books, which was very sweet of him; it was the only book of mine sold. I wanted to disappear. Naturally, I am incapable of considering for an instant it’s not all my fault and resolving to get plastic surgery, change my name and move to Tuktoyaktuk or Tuvalu…
But my WORST ever memory of a signature session was in the one place on Earth where you would think a Tolkien-related bookshop event would be a shoe-in – Oxford. The day following a pleasant enough booksigning in London, we made our way out of London by train, and descended at Oxford. The fact that there was nobody at all at the station should have warned me of a certain nonchalance on the bookseller’s part, but we eventually found the shop itself. I had to go inside to actually make sure, as there were precious few indications from the street, to be met by a pleasant enough store manager who set me up in the back of the shop, behind a table which was about 18 inches high, as I remember.
It was horrible. The Tolkien Society had apparently promised to publicize and bring people in, but their only contribution seemed to have been to deposit a wee pile of brochures advertising for the society on the table. (These I binned about halfway through the afternoon out of sheer spite.)
There was nobody. No, I’m wrong. There was a wonderfully forward little kid of about 6 who came and sat down too and we spent a happy hour doing one of those drawings where each person takes turn drawing a few lines. Oh yes, there was an elderly lady who asked what book it was I had written, and the staff had set aside a couple of books to be signed, but that was about it. Thankfully my wife and son had gone shopping for the afternoon, and I was eventually rescued by the clock and a journalist who took us to the Eagle and Child and described all the lovely things I might have seen in Oxford if I hadn’t frittered away my afternoon marooned in amongst lonely aisles of medical and cookery books.
Now I am very rarely tucked away in the back of bookshops, but come to think of it, those medical books could come in handy when I’ll need to make a sling for my right arm at the end of the afternoon…
PARIS
Looking forward to the visit later this afternoon at the Bilbliothèque Nationale (where did I put that Metro map?). I only hope that the interims who ruined the opening don’t think there’s another buffet available… I swear I haven’t flogged French culture to a foreign multinational, honest!
FNAC FORUM DES HALLES
According to their web site, I am signing books from 3:30 pm to 3:30 pm tomorrow…
(This is going to be one SHORT signature session!)
Du samedi 17 janvier 2004 à 15h30 au samedi 17 janvier 2004 à 15h30
Rayon Bd
Le Seigneur des Anneaux
A l’ occasion de la sortie du livre “Sur le Terres de Tolkien”, dédicace exceptionnelle de l’iilustrateur John Howe. Il reste connu dans le monde entier pour ses contributions à différents projets liés aux oeuvres de Tolkien: calendriers , affiches etc……Il a signé avec Alan Lee les concepts visuels pour le Seigneurs des anneaux.
http://rendezvous.fnac.com/agenda_magasin.asp?SID=238…=
ORIGINALLY
For all those people who have written asking to buy originals, there is another one up on e-bay this week:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3653801496
WHERE I TELL THE TRUTH*…
… The Whole Truth** and Nothing But The Truth***
And, last but not least, for those of you who have been wondering how I manage to spend so much time getting so little done, I have a confession to make. Since last February, I haven’t been very honest…
Nearly a year ago, in the lobby of a hotel, a fellow walked up and said (what else?) “Excuse me, Mr. Alan Lee?” “No! I’m the other guy!” I shrieked, collaring him and banging his head repeatedly on the reception desk. I didn’t actually do that, I probably mumbled something unitelligible as is my wont when faced with a chance to be witty, and when asked what I was doing in New Zealand, I foolishly replied I was working on a film project, but of course declined to say which one. End of conversation.
The next day, a local newspaper ran an article “John Howe seen in the company of film-maker Andrew Adamson”. Happily, local newspapers are by definition local, but so much for discretion…
There you have it. From February through May I didn’t do much else except work my fingers to the bone drawing lions, witches and wardrobes pretty much full time.
And last but far from least, apologies to all those who asked if I had indeed stepped through the wardrobe, and to whom I either lied or artfully dodged the question. Sorry about that, I hope you’ll forgive me. It won’t happen again (until next time).
Now that the production has moved to New Zealand I’ve wandered out of the wardrobe and shut the door carefully behind me. I can at last mention the project, but of course five months of hard sketching will have to wait for an eventual “Art of” book…
*within reason
**well, more or less
***objects in this mirror are closer than they appear
