Surreal Bowling!

Sometimes, you can be in the middle of the most normal, tranquil place doing what everyone else in the world does and suddenly - pow! You're a celebrity! In all seriousness, meeting a fan of your work when you least expect it is both gratifying and a little shocking.

I went bowling this evening at a local bowling alley in Spanaway, Washington. I was there with the missus, my brother-in-law and his girlfriend. All was going quietly until I was putting my name in the bowling alley machine and a woman from the alley directly next to us began explaining that I was copying them in adding nonsensical names to the bowling game as they had done (they were Batman and other fictional characters). I explained to the lady that I was actually Artemus Withers. It was at this point, she looked me dead in the eye and said "I wish I had your book here, I'd get you to sign it."

Let's just do the numbers to find out how incredible this really is. I've sold roughly 30 hard copies of The Adventures of Reztap and and 30 hard copies of Mishaps and Mayhem at conventions in TEXAS. There have been roughly 3 hard copies of Adventures sold on Amazon. Throw in the digital e-books, and you have roughly another 60-100 copies sold of both books combined and then there was the promotional blitz that gave away a few hundred copies of Mishaps and Mayhem. This lady read Adventures. That's an incredibly fine line she crossed on the probability path to actually meeting me. The odds were (approximately) 1 in 2 million that she'd read my book (or even knew my name) and that's just the ratio of buyers to the actual number of people in North America. The odds of her meeting me in a bowling alley in Spanaway, Washington? Let's just say I wished I'd played the lottery today and I need to get some rubber shoes before the next thunderstorm!

I'm a brand new face at conventions. Literally no one at the conventions has heard of me or my books, and yet I have a little over 30 buyers of my works just from them meeting me in person there. It's incredibly gratifying from an author's perspective to have someone take a chance on your book just because they met you in person and heard your best spiel on the attributes of buying it and reading it. I was so surprised to find someone who read (and enjoyed) my book who was in normal public life with no attachment to a fan convention or anything. So shocked, in fact, that I bowled fairly poorly my first game. My second game was much better, but she'd left before then. I hope I didn't leave a bad impression with my poor bowling.

All in all, it was fun and amazing to meet an actual admirer of my work. Of course, after thanking her for buying a book, I also informed her there was a prequel (Mishaps and Mayhem) and a sequel coming soon, hopefully in October. She seemed genuinely interested and I'm happy to know people are so struck after reading my books that they remember my name and wish they had the copy of the book with them when they meet me to get it signed. It was, in short, a really good day to be an author!

So buck up, little authors! You write it well and you'll have fans that may surprise you!

Artemus