To town and back

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It has been eight years since I've had a book out, and the entire process has changed. We don't see galleys anymore, for example, and much of the promotion is through the internet. Before, when I had a reading, I would make up posters to put up around town myself, or mail off for others to put up. Now I'm thinking of making up a poster that can be downloaded and printed from my website.

Some things never change, however: and that's the need for a box of my books in the back of my car. I went into town today — gas, bank machine, drug store, grocery store, flower shop ... — and I was asked several times for my book. (The town is small, 600 at last count, and bookstores nonexistant.) I'd forgotten about this part of the process, this ever-so-sweet selling of books out of the trunk of a car, a tradition every writer alive has been part of. I think of Grisham, driving around the country, peddling his novels to bookstores. I think of Dickens. It wouldn't have been a car but a horse-drawn buggy ... but without a doubt, he would have had books with him.