When I embarked on my first book signing last year with Walking the Corporate Beat: Police School for Business People, I was given a sobering warning: If you sell two books, that’s average, five books is a good day. Sitting there with a stack of 15-20 books, that did not sound encouraging. Now I was really concerned, as this was a non-fiction, lessons-learned book; I knew it did not have the wide appeal of a novel. However, things worked out much better than anticipated. At each of our six book signings, we either completely or nearly sold out. I would like to say that was because my book was so irresistible. While I was confident I wrote a good book, I also knew that sales did not correlate to the quality of my book. How could it? Nobody knew what was in the book. Unless you and your book are well known – and most of us are not - you are not selling your book. You are selling you.

My wife accompanies me on all my book signings. As native New Yorkers, we are both gregarious and starting conversations with strangers comes easy to us. And that is where it begins. You must engage the bookstore customers in conversation and get them interested, first in you and then your book. Just sitting there waiting for people to approach you, generally will not work. You may get a few curious people, but they are uncomfortable approaching you, especially if they feel they will be faced with “Wanna buy my book?” Be friendly and keep it light.

Also, use mob psychology to your favor. Invite groups of people over. If you engage people in conversation and share a few laughs, others will notice you. What happens when people see a crowd? They become curious and they want to see what’s going on. Now your audience has grown.

As with all sales, be ready for rejection. At our Midnight Sin book signing this weekend we sold 15 of our 20 books. With that, came a lot of “no thank you” or people deliberately avoiding eye contact and even some rudeness. That’s how it goes. Be confident in yourself and your book. The number of books you sell is contingent upon many factors out of your control; it does not define your success as an author. It is just one step in the process. You will meet new and interesting people. Most of all – have fun.