While there are those people in PR who would caution against posting negative or less than successful engagements, I’m not that sort, and as a result I would have liked to have reported an enormously successful day at the Bruce County Museum. Unfortunately I can’t.

Whenever I do a reading or signing I always send promotional posters and bookmarks to the coordinator at the venue. I did the same thing for the event at Bruce County Museum yesterday. But despite having three people involved in the publicity and marketing at Bruce County, not a single poster had been put up, and not a single bookmark given out at the information/gift shop desk. Consequently the only publicity the Museum did was through their website, and even that was very little. I, of course, did my usual viral thing, and contacted local media, who, as usual, were not at all interested.

As a result the reading started out with but one woman and me in the remarkable theatre at the Museum. We were joined by yet another woman after about 10 minutes, and then a family of four a little while later who were looking for the dinosaur movie, and then another family of four, you guessed it — looking for the dinosaur movie.

These problems, however, are all solutions waiting to happen, and I regaled my small audience with readings and commentary, encouraging a lively discussion between us.

After an hour we retired to the lobby where I sat at a table to sign books. Sold a very few, but at least to people who were eager to purchase. Best of all had one woman come by specifically to have me sign her previously purchased copy of Shadow Song. Now that was worth it all.

For the remainder of the afternoon I sat in the lobby, explaining no, I didn’t no where a water fountain was; no, I didn’t know the price of that dinosaur toy; apologies, but no I didn’t work at the Museum. I was, however, able to connect to the Museum’s network and so whiled away the time answering email and working on the revisions for From Mountains of Ice. Not a total loss.

Note to self: stick to Indigo chain stores for readings and signings.