Sold two “Cheesesteaks,” one old, one new.
The first, the old, went to a 30-something hard-hatted construction worker from the block-wide, seven-story building UC is putting up across the street from the café. He’d checked me out a couple weeks ago and said he’d be back when he had cash on him. A man of his word. The second book, the new, went to a smiling, white-haired woman, in an unbuttoned orange shirt over a white-tee, who’d stopped by the café while visiting a friend who’d recently moved into the neighborhood.
That was the second day I’d had both “Cheesesteaks” on my table. I’d also added little, propped-up, hand-written price tags by each book to alert passers-by that this was a commercial operation, not just an art installation – and a modestly scaled one.

When I begsn, the cartoonist was eager to be profiled.
But there was a delay with the magazine that was to publish it. Like three years, so far, and counting.
And when I wanted to publish it elsewhere, the editor said, “You can’t.”
And I was, “Huh? We don’t have a contract. You haven’t paid me anything.”
So he backed off, and another magazine grabbed it.
But by then the cartoonist seemed to have lost interest. At least he didn’t respond to e-mails from me or the new editor asking for art to illustrate the article.
We decided on “fair use.” I took a package – two books, two comix – and a poster inside a tube – to the USPO to send the art director outside Vancouver (WA).
The clerk looked in her magazine. “This address does not exist.”
I e-mailed the A.D. He confirmed his address. In fact, he said he was sitting in it.
I went for “Priority.” Two-day delivery.
Eleven days later, no one had it. The tracking number said, “Unable to deliver.”
I went back to the post office. Another clerk looked in his machine. “Unable to deliver,” he said.
“Well, why hasn’t it come back to me?” I said, figuring to give Fed Ex a shot.
“Sometimes the return takes a long time,” he said. He gave me an 800-number. It would connect me to the branch for the A.D.’s zip code. “They can make sure it’s not lying around there someplacde.”
Your tax dollars at work, I thought.
Meanwhile, we grabbed images off the internet.

BABF: Day 2
Two things improved.
Less wind, so not as cold.
Left three hours early, not two.
Sales-wise, not so much.

Sold a Wilson matchbook to a fellow who’d worked on “Sponge Bob Comics.” True, he passed on my books to buy it, which hurt my bottom line, but since Wilson gets the proceeds, it was good for my karma.)
Sold a “Huge” (art/story by Aaron Lange, Afterward by me) to a fellow who promised he was 18. (If he was – and not undercover – everything is kosher.)
Sold a “Best Ride” to the owner of one of the cafés which lets me sell there. (He wanted something for his Free Books shelf, so I steered him there, since it is my least expensive number.)
Ended with an “Outlaws, Rebels…” to a cartoonist-savvy editor. (I threw in a “Huge” gratis, when he showed interest in it.
As for the day’s best dialogue…
1.) “You’re competing with Alice Waters. She’s talking about peanut butter.”
2.) “I’m 86. What would you suggest about publishing?” (No, I did not suggest, “Don’t wait much longer.”)
3.) “Sauce or gravy?” (My interrogator seemed to believe this had something to do with my being from Philadelphia.)
4.) “Info booth. Can you direct me?”
5.) “I’m not a good customer. I don’t have any money with me.”
6.) “I’m scanning with my eyes.”
7.) “If I bought every book I wanted to read, I’d have no place to live.”
I also picked up a “fascinating” a “really interesting” and a “pretty cool” and a most-frequently (thrice) asked question: “What inspired you?”
When we were home, Adele said, “Look on the bright side. At least we din’t have to go to Larkspur or Rohnert Park.” “But if it was in in Larkspur or Rohnert Park,” I said, “we wouldn’t have gone.”

The biggest financial disaster since Lehman Brothers collapsed.
The opportunity to mingle with members of the reading public lost in the worst weather since Frnaklin’s fourth arctic expedition.
Okay, I’m out of metaphors.
Now some facts.
Sold two books, a “Most Outrageous” (to a comix world acquaintance) and a “Cheesesteak” (to a legal world one). I also bought two, a volume of poetry and a short story collection, which we turned out to already have. Two authors gave Adele and I books (one poetry, one prose), and we gave them each a “Best Ride.” (I also sold two over-sized match books, designed and illustrated by S. Clay Wilson for a bar in Chicago, and his special needs trust will get all of the proceeds there.)
To add to my instruction in humility, I was out-grossed by my table-mate, a 12-year-old. Her book is about a pumpkin, and she’d written it when she was 10.
Best Remarks Directed to Me by Non-Buyers:
1. “It looks like fun, but Steve wants me to go.”
2. “I wasn’t aware of this issue.”
3. “It’s been a pleasure.”
4. “Who knew that instigating disasters would be more profitable than liquidating them.”
5. “You have an interesting….”
“Oeuvre?”
“Right.”
6 “I was on the staff of the “Berkeley Barb.”
7. “I bought that,” indicating “Pirates and the Mouse.”
“What’d you think of it?”
“I haven’t read it.”
8. “Cool. Very cool.”
We left two hours early.

Since I’ll be at BABF this weekend, sure to be a story in itself — if not a saga — I decided to run this week’s entry early.

One “Cheesesteak” sold. (Also a “Not today” and a “Good luck” collected.)

The sale…

As readers may recall, my health club is connected to a hotel. So I’m working out, dressed in not-walking-around garb of black shorts, black skull cap, and cut-down football jersey (“Who’s 27?” someone once asked me. “Me,” I said), and someone says “BIOB!”

“It’s Mike!” he says. “Friends’ Central!”

Now the accent is definite Philadelphia, and I can practically feel my brain flipping through every face it knew in high school, like they were on a deck of cards, adding 50 – 60 years, and… ZERO.

Finally he admits he’s pulling my leg. His words exactly. “Pulling your leg.” We had met the year before in the locker room when he’d he’d asked me a question. I’d recognized his accent and given him a “Cheesesteak.” Now he was back, visiting a daughter again and wanted to buy a copy for a friend.

The friend, Overbrook ’65, had been a straight “E” student, now works, if you can believe it, as a wedding singer.

Who says I don’t have wide marketing potential.

Sold no books.
But I gave away 11 “Best Ride”s at my Café Venne reading. (I did not read from it, but from a story in which it factored.) “Couldn’t get bobbleheads in time,” I quipped, “and the ‘Strength in Numbers’ t-shirts had been spoken for.” (I also gave away eight guitar picks, but that’s a different story.)
The reading was lotsa fun. We drew 25-30 people, one-third invited by me, one-third invited by my co-reader/co-organizer, the magnificent Yvonne, one-third past-or-present morning regulars at the café, who knew one or both of us. (Some brought relatives or friends.) Only one walk-in arrived, but she was someone who knew me and saw my name on the flyer posted on the door.
I think the event was enjoyed by all. The only suggestion otherwise came the next morning when I overheard someone say to a fellow who hadn’t been there, “The audience was so old, half of it fell asleep.” I think she over-stated the situation. I only saw one person fall asleep, and she is in her mid-80s and receives chemo-, so she’s entitled. (She was also seated next to the woman who reported and may have fallen on her shoulder, which would certainly have colored her experience.)
Haven’t heard from management how business went (but I counted two espressos, three teas, a glass of wine, and a slice of cake ordered). Also haven’t heard how the hotel guests, of which the café is a part and to which there is only one shared entrance, felt about schlepping through the audience (sleeping or not) to get to and from their rooms. Pain in the ass or charming Berkeley native life.

First, an apology.
I missed last week because a burglar/literary critic made off with my laptop.
I had been planning to update new readers/FB “friends” with what I’d been doing anyway, and that is, since I began self-publishing, to sit in a café with a stack of my books and a sign of a Checkered Demon (drawn by legendary UG cartoonist S. Clay Wilson) saying “Buy Bob’s Books!” Then each week, I would report on sales or other notable encounters. A post-burglary development is that, when tidying my study, I came across an old “New Yorker” cartoon of a disheveled fellow standing on a corner, his hat set at his feet for donations, and a sign “Meet the Author, which I have added to my presentation.
In fact, I believe it was this cartoon that caught the eye of a cute five-or-six year old girl.
“Wanna buy a book?” I said.
That got me a big smile.
“You’re too young,” I said. “Come back in a few years.”
That got a smile from her mother.

Otherwise, one check in the mail for a “Cheesesreak” 2d ed., from a correspondent in the comic world.
And two copies of it and of “The Schiz” picked up by the burglar, but since they happened to be in the shoulder bag within which he carried off my laptop, I can’t put this down to editorial choice.
Before all of this I’d been running into a spate of “Maybe next time” and “I’ll think about it” and “I’m traveling light”s at the café.
My favorite was young woman – probably a grad student in one of the sciences, from China – jean jacket, jeans, over-sized glasses – who picked up a “Cheesesteak” and said, “About food?”
“A memoir about growing up in West Philadelphia,” I said.
“Your story? Very cool.”
“Take a look. Ask a question.”
“Maybe next time.”
I figure “Very cool,” “Maybe next time” are two handy expressions to have in English.

Sold one “Best Ride.”
The buyer was a thirtyish, baseball-capped civil engineer, who works on the Bay Shore trail. He said he would read it next week on his flight to France.
I hoped he would have something to cover the remaining several hours. I figured he would leave it in France, where it would be picked up by someone who would adore it and make me the next American artist to have his career revived there.

In other news…
1. A colleague gave me a brochure by a self-publishing guru. Of her Top Tips, the most relevant seemed “Persistence is Key.” Well, I thought, every day I sit in the café with my “Buy Bob’s Books” sign and wares, so I have that covered. But then there was “Build Your Platform.”
With the drain of the actuarial tables upon my core audience, I was having trouble holding my own. And this was even before people began bailing on Facebook.
2. The new, photo-illustrated edition of “Cheesesteak” has arrived and is currently available from my hall closet ($15 to POB 9492, Berkeley 94709; $10 in person) and presumably from discerning book stores and on-line. I sent copies to five Philly-area papers (since that’s where most of the action occurs). For promotion, that’s it. See what I mean about being “platform”-challenged. (But if you want to write a review, lemme know.)
3. Responses to the proposed reading series at the café have been positive – but not too many people want to actually read. The manager has been enthusiastic and supportive – but took the announcement down when the building owner was in town. I’ve also posted announcements at my other café and health club, which produced zero attendees at my last reading, but, you know…
Persistence is key.

No sales.
But a delightful café conversation with a Washington State undergraduate from So Cal, who was visiting Berkeley. A computer science major, with an interest in journalism, she asked enough questions about “inspiration” and “process” that you would expect aspiring writers to ask actual ones that I almost believed I had become just that. I got a kick out of listening to her and listening to me and watching us both. I gave her my card and told her about my blog and said she could soon be reading about herself.

In other news, the new, photo-illustrated edition of “Cheesesteak,” with added supplemental material by the author, has shipped from the printer. It can be purchased in stores, on-line, or, personally signed, for $15 to Spruce Hill Press, POB 9492, Berkeley 94709.
And with the short story writer/memoirist Yvonne Martinez, I will be kicking off a new reading series at the Vanne Bistro (formerly the café at the French Hotel), 1538 Shattuck, Berkeley, CA, on April 16, 94709. (If you’d like to read at a future date, e-mail me: adelbob@comcast.net.)