More Waterstone's Book Signings

It's still snowing here, and the roads are iced over. I'm at my parents' house, about to leave for London. The snow looks like glitter falling from a dark sky. Car windows are frosted. Car theft has spiked up due to owners leaving their vehicles unattended with the engines running to generate warmth.

In Wigan on Saturday, Waterstone's sold out of copies of Hard Time within an hour and a half, and we had to fetch more from the car. Staff member Abbey was a great help, immediately jumping into a jail outfit (see pic below) and handing out flyers to incoming shoppers. My mother generated considerable sales by chatting to customers. Wild Man showed up and signed some books as well. He looked larger than life in a black flowing jacket.

The next day in Warrington we sold even more, and set a new record for the amount of books sold at that store on a Sunday. Two staff members donned the jail outfits (see pics below), and handed out flyers.

Waterstone's promptly recommended more Hard Time signings to its stores in the northwest, and today I was inundated with requests. I'm now scheduled to do signings nearly every day of the week preceding Xmas. Two of their biggest stores, both Manchester locations, have booked me for March.

I'm still getting nowhere with the southern bookstores though, which is a pity as I live by London. Does anyone out there work at a southern Waterstone's? It actually costs more to travel up north than I make from the books sold at these signings. But at least more people are reading Hard Time, and spreading the word.

Click here for the first Waterstone's signings blog