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November 22, 2004
Humbled by Walter the Farting Dog
It seems right to start a blog with a confessional moment. So here it is.
Everyone who has a book published should do a “book tour.� If you don’t know what T. S. Eliot meant when he wrote in East Coker, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire/ is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless,� a book tour is a great way to find out.
In 2003, according to the Wall Street Journal, 175,000 new books were published. But people are reading fewer and fewer books and those people are reading the same ones.
So you had better enjoy the journey and not even think of the destination.
The fun of going to small independent bookstores in Wisconsin, where I live, is engaging with people. For the most part, the people are great. The ones who aren’t (like the woman in Ripon WI who picked up on my German surname and said, thinking it was a compliment, “Maybe Hitler was right�) are still interesting.
Once in a while an “author event� is a commercial success. Schwartz’s Bookstore, the last independent chain in Wisconsin, did everything right and lots of people came and bought books. I’ll say more later about why it worked. Meanwhile check them out at
Today, however, I am thinking of a visit to Creekside Books in Cedarburg WI.
The small store is on the main street of a classically picturesque town dominated by cream city brick and nineteenth century architecture. There are plenty of coffee shops and antique stores and the old mill has been turned into a mall with halls that smell of potpourri and aromatic oils.
http://www.ci.cedarburg.wi.us/welcome.htm
The proprietor of Creekside Books, a smiling gregarious guy named Glen, has owned the store for fifteen months. He’s doing what he can but the outlook is grim. Drive to the interstate from Cedarburg and it’s only a few miles to one of those Schwartz’s, another few to Border’s, then a couple more miles to a Barnes and Noble. In the other direction. just up the road, they’re planning a Costco and a Sam’s Club. That’s like hearing that a hungry T-Rex is moving in next door.
I showed up on a Saturday afternoon with a small stack of “Islands in the Clickstream,� the recently published collection of columns from Syngress Publishing, ready for an “author event.� (Syngress is at http://www.syngress.com/)
A card table was set up in front so customers would have to pass me to get to the rest of the store. The rest of the store, however, was empty.
“Uh, Glen,� I said, “you did get some publicity into the local paper, right?�
Glen said he sent it in, honest, but they swore they never received it.
“So ... are you saying there was no publicity? No one knows I‘m here?�
He pointed to the window where a flyer was pasted. “I put that up last week.�
OK, so no one would show except by accident. That’s the time for religious-sounding rationalizations like, I was “meant� to get to know Glen really well that afternoon. In fact, we did talk with energy and gusto mostly about the coming election, shutting up when customers entered, lest they recoil from our obviously partisan rants.
As people dribbled through over the next couple of hours, I felt like a legless guy on the sidewalk, empty cap on the pavement. People must think that if they make eye contact they have to buy the book. I learned a lot about peripheral vision as people turned their heads at a forty-five degree angle and squeezed past, heads aslant.
In the second hour, Earl, my buddy from the post office (we discuss philosophy and politics over the counter while he weighs my packages) wandered in from an antique show and bought two books. Thanks, Earl!
Three large women came in after him. One came to the table and picked up my book. Be still my heart, I thought. Don’t show too much emotion.
“What’s it about?� she asked.
“It’s about the ways technology—“ I began.
“Oh, geez,� she said, putting it down. “That sounds so heavy.� Then she looked over at the counter and her eyes brightened. “Girls!� she cried. “Look!�
They weren’t girls, but they sounded like it, squealing as they raced to flank her and turn the colorful pages. They oohed and ahhed with delight and after they bought the book and left, Glen said, Do you know, in fifteen months, I’ve sold over four hundred of that book.
And the best-selling book in Cedarburg Wisconsin is ...
Yep. You guessed it.
“Walter the Farting Dog.�
The book consists of a few pages of big pictures of a family with a dog whose noxious fumes almost force the bad dad to get rid of him. One day burglars break in and Walter farts them out of the house. Everybody hugs the dog and the dad says, oh Walter, we’ll never get rid of you now. Walter farts and they all live happily ever after.
I hope I haven’t ruined the story by giving away the ending. The book is mostly pictures, anyway, the first in a series. Maybe it’ll be a movie. Or a video game. Or a prototype for action figures with little sacks of noxious smells.
But here’s my confessional moment: when you finally have a book in print, it’s absolutely humbling to be bitch-slapped by Walter the Farting Dog.
Oh, I know. Keep things in perspective. It’s even more humbling, I imagine, for Glen to think about Sam’s Club and Costco. Those killers will ride loud through his life like a posse on Harley’s, leaving him smelling fumes that are worse than Walter’s farts.
I’ll never stop rooting for the little guy, but that won’t keep the Global Free Market Economy from eating its young, will it? The challenge is to live in niches, not surrender entirely in the face of the rage and storm of the world, and remind each other quietly in the night what matters most.
If you don’t live near a Schwartz’s Bookstore or other independent, learn more about Walter the best-selling farting dog here:
http://www.northatlanticbooks.com/public_relations/2002/pr_walter.html
“Richard Thieme’s Islands in the Clickstream� is here
http://www.bookpool.com/.x/isb2bjtaim/ss/1?qs=+Islands+in+the+Clickstream&Go.x=20&Go.y=10
and here:
Posted by Thieme at November 22, 2004 04:04 PM