Final score: Women 24, Men 13
October 29, 2013 4:21 pm 5 CommentsThe Saturday before last I had the good fortune of doing a book signing at a Barnes and Noble (Almaden Plaza) in San Jose. It is a beautiful, large store, and I had a good time. The staff was friendly.
I stayed most of the day and ended up selling a good number of my latest thriller, White Thaw: The Helheim Conspiracy, as well as copies of the earlier two in my thriller trilogy.
What I enjoy about signings is interacting with customers. You meet a wide variety of people. As potential customers walk by, I try to engage them in conversation to determine, for openers, if they’re interested in thrillers. If they’re nonfiction people, I’m out of luck. But, perhaps surprisingly, I’d say that some 60-70% say that they like thrillers.
Now in terms of the typical person who buys my books I can tell you precisely who that is: women. This is not to say that men do not buy my books but, in general, more women than men do. When I mentioned this to one of the staff, it became clear that I wasn’t telling him something he didn’t already know. Women are the store’s biggest customers as well. This fact would make my kick-butt protagonist (of White Thaw), Dr. Linda Kipling, proud. When I did a casual check on the Internet, one study said that women bought 58% of books–remarkably close to the percentage of books that I sold to women at this signing, 65% (24/37).
The most gratifying feeling I get comes from the customer who takes a look at each of my three thrillers, grabs one from each stack, and buys all three. This happened twice at this signing. One sale involved a single woman alone, and the other a man/woman couple. Life for an author doesn’t get much better than that.
Categorised in: White Thaw
This post was written by paulmarktag01
5 Comments
Indeed I have enjoyed reading your book and I wish to read the rest of your books if there are in the book store. I have visited your web-site as you stated in your book and indeed it has good information .
Es sprehen Deutsch Ủnd Hungar auch.
Best regards.
When I left the signing, I left behind two copies of Prophecy and seven copies of Category 5; these are my two earlier thrillers. BUT, I will be back at Almaden Plaza on Saturday, 7 December, in case you are in the area.
Good to hear from you!
Sincerely, Paul
P.S. Ich spreche nur ein wenig Deutsch.
hi Paul:Prophecy hope it’s based on the Bible.We are living in interesting times.When I visited Herb the room was dark.I ask are you still planning to go to Heaven?OH YAY that’s all he said,never opened his eye’s.I said I hope I go there,he said oh you will.He died the next day.His neighbor gordon
Hi Paul.How is your mother,we hope to go see her this fall.We met the Owners of the restaurant where she worked at our Christian Coalition meeting in Sharon last mo.They rememered her.What a women.
Great to hear from you again.