No sales in either café.
But two checks in POB for IWKYA, one from an old pal from my pick-up basketball days, one from a fellow who left Berkeley decades ago for a town outside Philly.
(Also a promise of purchase, which I normally wouldn’t report, but it’s from a second cousin who’s a regular reader of these tales, and I promised him a salute.)
In other news…
In one of those events which can leave you wondering why you engage in this business, I was informed that “Cheesesteak” had sold so few copies, it had failed to offset the distributor’s costs, and I might never see a check. Costs? Who knew distributors had costs? I have been promised further information.
Offsetting this for my ego – if not my checking account balance – was an invitation to write the introduction to a collaboration between a cartoonist/philosopher correspondent-buddy and a novelist of undisputable colorful (at minimum) cult status which is to be published by an actual university press. They need a “bridge” between the literary and comix communities and aim to propose me to the editor as their guy. Totally flattered and totally on board if it materializes.
Then on a whim, I checked to see if any libraries had stocked my recent works. I was astounded to see “The Schiz” was in a dozen, including Penn, Columbia and UC Berkeley, and, while “Cheesesteak” was only in three, one was Stanford and one The National Library of Israel, my first appearance in the entire middle east.
Finally, fare has been set for the launch party at Berkeley Espresso. (See earlier “Adventures” for details.) We will provide pastries, fruit, cheese. Beverages will be on the guests. Concern has expressed about the sufficiency of parking, seating, places to hang coats, but my attitude is more like “Hey, it’s not a fucking bar mitzvah!”