The Radio Interview and the Mermaid

Well, I had my radio interview the other day. There was another author there by the name of J L Cash. Reverend Jim Wilson interviewed us. He is a very intelligent and interesting man.

Being on the radio is fun but also scary. During the whole interview I kept praying that God would not let me say anything silly. That is easy to do when the interviewer is asking you questions and you have to answer them off the top of your head. I think I did okay. I hope so.

It helped that there was another author there also. Jim Wilson would talk to me for a few minutes and then he would talk to Jim Cash. That would give me a moment to relax. It is amazing what being on the radio does for your ego. Suddenly you feel like maybe you are a success, whether you really are or not.

The way I met Jim Wilson was at a book signing. I belong to a writer’s forum. Once a year they have a big book signing in the center of the local mall. You can rent half of a table for half of or all of the day. People in the mall come by and look at the books, talk to you, and hopefully buy. You don’t have to be a member of the forum to rent a table. I rented half a table for the whole day.

As it turned out, the other half of the table had been rented for half a day by a lady who was not from the forum. She had a book that she had written about some little mermaids who had special powers. I read part of the book and thought it seemed like it had been written, and illustrated by a little child. She told me that she had not been able to sell a single book. I wasn’t surprised. She said she decided to give the book signing a try. I felt sorry for her because obviously she had wasted her money. I really liked the lady, but I couldn’t see anyone spending any money on her book.

We sat there and started getting to know each other a little bit. She was really sweet and soft spoken. After about five minutes a lady stopped at our table and looked at my book. She told me that when she came to the book signing she had told herself that she could buy two books and had decided that mine was going to be one of them. I was very flattered and excited.

About twenty minutes later a lady who already had one of my books showed up. She had her aunt with her. The aunt wanted to get one of my books also.  I happily sold her one also and was thrilled with how well the book signing was going. This was going to be a very good day.

Then the lady with the mermaid book told me that her son’s girlfriend had said that she would wear a mermaid costume and come down to help promote the mermaid book. A few minutes later she showed up. The top part of her costume consisted of two shells with a ribbon around the back. There wasn’t even a ribbon over her shoulders to hold up the shells, so she had to keep pulling them up. The bottom of the costume started about four inches below her belly button and went down to her ankles, where she was wearing very tall high heels.  As you can tell, there was very little left to the imagination. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

The gentleman who had rented half of the table on the other side of the mermaid author introduced himself to me and we became friends. He was Reverend Jim Wilson (the radio interviewer) and he had several of his books there. He has been selling his books for many years and is very successful at it.

As soon as the mermaid showed up you can imagine what happened. Every time a man or boy walked by, their jaw would hit the floor and they would stare at her the entire time as they passed the tables. Every time a woman walked by she would say, “Oh, how cute”, and stare also. Every time a child walked by they would start squealing, “Oh mommy, mommy. Look at the mermaid. Mommy take my picture with the mermaid.”  So, of course, the mommy would take out her phone and take a picture of her child with the mermaid. Then the child would again start squealing, “Oh mommy, look at the mermaid book. Mommy buy me the mermaid book.”  The mother, without even looking at the book to see if she liked it or not, would take out her check book and buy the mermaid book.

No other author on our entire side of the square of tables ever even got looked at or spoken to again, once the mermaid showed up.

I couldn’t wait for the day to be half over because the mermaid author would be leaving. Then maybe the rest of the authors and I could get to talk to the people again. Suddenly, to my dismay, the mermaid author told me that the person who had rented her half of the table for the afternoon hadn’t shown up so she was being allowed to stay for the rest of the day. My heart sank.

Jim Wilson and I did a lot of talking to each other because there were no people to talk to. In the early afternoon, he told me that someone at one of the tables had sold all of their books and had left. He said that he wasn’t even being seen where he was, so he was moving to where the other author had been. For the rest of the afternoon I kept looking over where he was and he was constantly selling two or three books at a time all the rest of the day. He sold tons of books. Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t another space that came available all day, so I had to stay where I was.

The mermaid author sold books all day long. I only sold the two books before the mermaid showed up. By the end of the day I was just laughing to myself about it. It was a case of either laughing or crying so I decided I had to see the humor in it. However, before the day was over, Jim Wilson had set up a radio interview with me. That was a little over a year ago. The interview last week was the second one, so I guess it all worked out for the best anyway.

What I learned at that book signing was how effective marketing can be. The mermaid book was not well done, but the marketing was. If you find something that grabs people’s attention, like a scantily clad mermaid, it is amazing what you can accomplish. Since my book is about a little angel in heaven, I don’t think I will be marketing it with a scantily clad angel. I guess I will have to think of something else.

If you would like to find out more about my book, feel free to email me at jbates@littlechrisamee.com. I will be happy to send you some information about the book and show you examples of the illustrations.

God bless you.