Mystery Writer Parnell Hall Sings The Book Tour Blues (VIDEO)

It's every writer's dream to be published and sent on tour, doing book signings for fans lined up just to have a moment with you. If you're Mary Higgins Clark, maybe. If you're Parnell Hall, watch what happens:

Comments

[ckmotorka]

05:39 PM on 06/14/2010

Makes me want to read one of his books!

Is that John Prine singing? Sounds like him.

[tonysopranolives]

01:35 PM on 06/01/2010

I've written close to 50 books and have done signings for about half of them. The majority of them were failures. During many, I sold no books.

However, a few years ago, I sold my first novel for a significant advance, and the publisher spent money on ads in Harpers, the New Yorker, and elsewhere. After dozens of nonfiction books, everyone was very excited about my first novel.

The publisher set up a signing at a local Barnes & Noble, and they did a lot to help the store prepare: posters of the cover, bookmarks, etc. The signing was a huge success - second only to a signing by Bernie Siegel at the same store. There were over 300 people there.

How did this happen? We sent out invitations. My mother just happened to have the names and addresses of every friend and family member who had been invited to weddings, showers, and other big family events over the past decade or so. I designed and had printed invitations with all the details and we hand-addressed the envelopes and wrote "Please come! We'd love to see you!" on each invitation.

I had done this one time before for my first book and it was similarly successful. I know this only works for local signings where people you know can actually attend, but a successful signing is a successful signing, right?

As I said, the turnout was huge. It cost me money for postage and printing, but it was well worth

[alumcreek]

09:40 AM on 05/31/2010

Next to Mary Higgins Clark? That had to hurt. She probably outsells the bible these days.

[brettrobbins]

07:07 PM on 06/14/2010

Yeah, he shouldn't feel so bad.

[bob hughes]

07:14 AM on 05/31/2010

I don't think Parnell Hall actually has trouble selling books. He's had several series of detective novels including the current Puzzle Lady series, which seems to fly off the shelves. How he can continually think of a way to connect crossword puzzles and murder is amazing. I'm betting he wishes he never came up with the idea.

[brettrobbins]

03:22 AM on 05/31/2010

There's something hauntingly pathetic, or pathetically haunting (in the most complimentary sense of either of these descriptions), about this guy's voice. Maybe he's a country music star-to-be waiting to burst out of his self-pitying author cocoon.

[ckmotorka]

05:35 PM on 06/14/2010

I'd swear it's John Prine.

[poochytown]

02:28 AM on 05/31/2010

I've been there. I'm not a mystery writer but I am an author and the pain of being on a publicity tour that generates little interest can be excruciating. The second worst part is the pitying, falsely cheerful philosophical consolations offered by store staff as you pack up to leave. "Sorry you didn't get a bigger crowd," they say; "Things are always slow here on Wednesday evenings."

[bartonfink]

05:13 AM on 06/01/2010

I was one of those staffers who made excuses for the lack of turnout at book signings! Pretty much most of the 90s, I worked at two different bookstores and the result Mr. Parnell got repeatedly in the video was standard fair, unless you were MHG (did a signing with her once. staggering turnout), or Barbara Bush (offsite. huge), Robert James Waller (remember Bridges of Madison County? our store broke that nationally) et al. Most were local or semi-regional authors (the Florida, Miami-based mystery/crime writers did well) who could count on a few friends stopping in, but after that, the staff just prayed for a strong after dinner crowd out for a stroll. Otherwise, it could be a ghost town. Just awful, especially off-season, with some authors, who tend towards the retreating type, just sitting there, making little to no effort to engage people who might stop and say something like "You wrote a book? Look Henry, this man wrote a book. What's it about. Oh, well good luck."

Lesson learned: you need a thick skin if you're not on Oprah's BOTM club...

[Matthew Mina]

02:19 AM on 05/31/2010

poor guy

[ashabot]

02:02 AM on 05/31/2010

Mr. Parnell gets my applause and sympathy. That looks like one hard gig. I read my poetry at open mics which are another variation of the medieval torture known as pillorying.

[Querent]

12:11 AM on 05/31/2010

That was kind of tragic, but it definitely wasn't the blues.

[Tunghoy]

12:02 AM on 05/31/2010

Book stores are the absolute worst place to sell books. You spend a fortune to print, the distributor and store take about 95% of sales, and if the store doesn't sell the books in a short period of time, they return the unsold copies. I co-authored about a dozen computer books and we lost tons of money going into stores.

To make money selling books, you need viral marketing (which we didn't do very well). I hope Parnell Hall figures it out, and his video is a good start.

[poochytown]

02:28 AM on 05/31/2010

Or you could write a good book that sells.

[Tunghoy]

07:20 AM on 05/31/2010

Books don't sell themselves, and people have to know a book is available if you want them to buy it. Book selling is different from most other products because there are only 3 or 4 retailers in the country that can make any difference, and if you're really lucky to get in one (usually with bribery), you have to give them such liberal payment and return terms, its nearly impossible to make money. There are a handful of blockbuster authors like Clark, Grisham and King, and the other 99.5% earn money from non-retail sources like book clubs.

[blooddoc]

07:44 PM on 05/30/2010

The really sad part about this is that a lot of the stuff published by "name" authors is boilerplate, regurgitated drivel that they've phoned in, published only because they have the "name". Newer authors with really good stuff get the shaft simply because they don't have the connections the "name" authors have acquired. True, these big authors have, earlier in their career, published at least one work that resonated with readers, but after a while they could publish their local phone book and people would still line up just because of the celebrity. This is a sad commentary on literature in general, but after all, money trumps everything.

[poochytown]

02:32 AM on 05/31/2010

This sounds like sour grapes. Plenty of new writers break in because they write good books that people want to read. To blame one's lack of success on a system that is stacked against one is a wee bit pitiful.

[Fabini]

09:22 AM on 06/01/2010

As a writer of drivel I take umbrage with your comments. I don't phone it in, I email it!

[Soulslider]

07:37 PM on 05/30/2010

Great self promotion. He should be a comedy writer instead of mystery.

[shespeaks]

04:11 PM on 05/30/2010

Hilarious. Perhaps if he sang this there, more people would stop at his book signings. I would. And would probably buy a book out of guilt for getting a good laugh.

[TheGripester]

04:00 PM on 05/30/2010

True story. At a science fiction convention book-signing in the early 80's, a very young Barry Longyear and C.J. Cherryh were seated on either side of Larry Niven. Before them, a crowd milled, waiting for permission to approach the signing table. A convention staffer finally appeared, clapped his hands for attention, and proclaimed, "All right, people. Please line up in front of the author you wish to have sign your book." And of course they lined up in front of Niven, who turned to Longyear and said pompously, "See how they all fall into line before me." Longyear looked like someone pulled the rug out from under him. He should have given Niven a wedgie.

[Tyrione]

04:16 AM on 05/31/2010

Sounds like a complete tool. I met Terry Brooks who signed my first edition hardbound Sword of Shannara and was an absolute gentleman. He then promptly read a few chapters of his book just released and had the entire room fixated.

[Pennsylvanianne]

07:07 AM on 05/31/2010

Just to put this in a different context: who's Larry Niven?

[SaraMN00]

02:13 PM on 05/31/2010

I was thinking the same thing...

[Beaupedia]

02:43 AM on 06/02/2010

Famous sci-fi writer.

[useyourbrainmore]

03:12 PM on 05/30/2010

Maybe he should have "tweeted" the book, one line at a time. Now there's an idea to sell a mystery novel.

At least he got a good laugh from it.