No sales but…
A reader in Massachusetts writes that he liked “Cheesesteak” so much he is ready to buy a “Best Ride.” To whom should he write his check? (Answer: “Bob Levin” or “Spruce Hill Press” will do.)
And the fellow in Philly, linked to me through high school and summer camp (See: “Adventures in Marketing” supra) was so pleased by the “Cheesesteak” I sent him, he offered to pay for it. I declined, but added, “However, if you care to send a present to friends…”
Finally, just as I was leaving the café yesterday, a guy in his 40s came by my table and picked up a “Cheesesteak.”.
“Are you from Philadelphia?” I said.
Until he was 10. Then his family moved to Ocean City. His father went to West Catholic and his mother to Hallahan.
“You’re a little young,” I said, “but they’ll love it.
He promised he’d be back to buy one.

In other news, the editor in NYC who’d had “Heart,” Adele’s and my jointly written account (care giver and patient) of our adventures in cardiovascular-land, concluded “the close details of event, diagnosis, cure and treatment… didn’t leave enough room for readers to put themselves inside the story.” Her reaction to content was refreshing, since we’d grown accustomed to simply being rejected for our lack of a sufficient “platform. But since the last editor to read the m.s. had felt anything outside the medical detracted from our core story, we didn’t feel helped appreciably.
We will self-publish.

Sold one Schiz.
The buyer was a middle-aged, keeps-to-himself-at-the-cafe mathematician. He said he’d bought a Cheesesteak, but, to tell you the truth, I’d forgotten. I’m still not sure I believe him. Maybe he wanted a cover story to justify picking up something as trigger-jerking as this one. Or maybe I’ve benefited from my recent goodwill networking.
Safeway, next door, is coming to the end of its annual Monopoly game, and, instead of sticking to its one-ticket-per-$10-purchase policy, is handing out entire boxes. Many of these tickets come with tabs entitling the bearer to free (donuts, gravy mix, bottled water, aspirin) or discounted (bacon, paper towels, cookies) stuff, and I’ve been handing them out like Johnny Appleseed. (The game, itself, has prizes up to $1 million. Adele and I, after putting in about, oh, 50 hours, have won $5.)
Actually, my books have been moving so slowly, I’ve taken a more aggressive approach at expanding my name-recognition. For instance, a fellow in Philly e-mailed me because he’d read my blog “Notes on Camp,” from 2014 and was now the director of the one which had taken over mine 60 years ago (He’d also graduated my high school 28 years after me) and wanted to learn more about me. So I sent him a Cheesesteak, fantasizing about the legions of ex-campers he might tout it to.
Then a friend sent me notice of an exhibit of photographs of historic West Philadelphia at a gallery at 40th and Walnut, a half-block from an apartment he and I’d shared 1964-5. I e-mailed the photographer offering a Cheesesteak, imagining he might want to incorporate a stack of them as an installation and/or sell them on consignment at the gift shop. He ignored me, but I sent him a copy anyway.
Stay tuned.

No sales.
No conversations.
No remarks.

In other news…
1.) Word has reached me that a review of “The Schiz” – its first – is in the works. The prospective reviewer, an on-line pal since glory days of the nail-the-butchered-corpse-to-the-wall
TCJ Message Board, knows large chunks of my oeuvre, so his take should be fun. He promises a “Levin-style… digressing all over the maps (and sometimes uncharted waters)…” Stay tuned.
2.) The second monthly reading at the café suffered a 40% drop in attendance (25 to 15), but a good time was had by all. (Our audiences still seem composed of friends of the readers, and these two shared an overlapping pool.) The average age of the assembled was about 75 and the average complexion white. Gender was split.
One woman read from novels she’d written based on time spent living in England and on time spent sailing the South Pacific. The other read about the two years she spent living and working in a Kentucky mining town, with dialogue rendered in dialect and snatches of Appalachian folk songs a capella.
The generally expressed feeling was “What a good idea!” One veteran of the ‘60s Village Folk scene thanked me for restoring a sense of “Bohemia” to the place – a term I hadn’t heard in conversation in a while.
My main thought was, There sure are a lot of deep and interesting people at this little cafe.

Sold two “Cheesesteaks,” one old, one new.
The first, the old, went to a 30-something hard-hatted construction worker from the block-wide, seven-story building UC is putting up across the street from the café. He’d checked me out a couple weeks ago and said he’d be back when he had cash on him. A man of his word. The second book, the new, went to a smiling, white-haired woman, in an unbuttoned orange shirt over a white-tee, who’d stopped by the café while visiting a friend who’d recently moved into the neighborhood.
That was the second day I’d had both “Cheesesteaks” on my table. I’d also added little, propped-up, hand-written price tags by each book to alert passers-by that this was a commercial operation, not just an art installation – and a modestly scaled one.

When I begsn, the cartoonist was eager to be profiled.
But there was a delay with the magazine that was to publish it. Like three years, so far, and counting.
And when I wanted to publish it elsewhere, the editor said, “You can’t.”
And I was, “Huh? We don’t have a contract. You haven’t paid me anything.”
So he backed off, and another magazine grabbed it.
But by then the cartoonist seemed to have lost interest. At least he didn’t respond to e-mails from me or the new editor asking for art to illustrate the article.
We decided on “fair use.” I took a package – two books, two comix – and a poster inside a tube – to the USPO to send the art director outside Vancouver (WA).
The clerk looked in her magazine. “This address does not exist.”
I e-mailed the A.D. He confirmed his address. In fact, he said he was sitting in it.
I went for “Priority.” Two-day delivery.
Eleven days later, no one had it. The tracking number said, “Unable to deliver.”
I went back to the post office. Another clerk looked in his machine. “Unable to deliver,” he said.
“Well, why hasn’t it come back to me?” I said, figuring to give Fed Ex a shot.
“Sometimes the return takes a long time,” he said. He gave me an 800-number. It would connect me to the branch for the A.D.’s zip code. “They can make sure it’s not lying around there someplacde.”
Your tax dollars at work, I thought.
Meanwhile, we grabbed images off the internet.

BABF: Day 2
Two things improved.
Less wind, so not as cold.
Left three hours early, not two.
Sales-wise, not so much.

Sold a Wilson matchbook to a fellow who’d worked on “Sponge Bob Comics.” True, he passed on my books to buy it, which hurt my bottom line, but since Wilson gets the proceeds, it was good for my karma.)
Sold a “Huge” (art/story by Aaron Lange, Afterward by me) to a fellow who promised he was 18. (If he was – and not undercover – everything is kosher.)
Sold a “Best Ride” to the owner of one of the cafés which lets me sell there. (He wanted something for his Free Books shelf, so I steered him there, since it is my least expensive number.)
Ended with an “Outlaws, Rebels…” to a cartoonist-savvy editor. (I threw in a “Huge” gratis, when he showed interest in it.
As for the day’s best dialogue…
1.) “You’re competing with Alice Waters. She’s talking about peanut butter.”
2.) “I’m 86. What would you suggest about publishing?” (No, I did not suggest, “Don’t wait much longer.”)
3.) “Sauce or gravy?” (My interrogator seemed to believe this had something to do with my being from Philadelphia.)
4.) “Info booth. Can you direct me?”
5.) “I’m not a good customer. I don’t have any money with me.”
6.) “I’m scanning with my eyes.”
7.) “If I bought every book I wanted to read, I’d have no place to live.”
I also picked up a “fascinating” a “really interesting” and a “pretty cool” and a most-frequently (thrice) asked question: “What inspired you?”
When we were home, Adele said, “Look on the bright side. At least we din’t have to go to Larkspur or Rohnert Park.” “But if it was in in Larkspur or Rohnert Park,” I said, “we wouldn’t have gone.”

The biggest financial disaster since Lehman Brothers collapsed.
The opportunity to mingle with members of the reading public lost in the worst weather since Frnaklin’s fourth arctic expedition.
Okay, I’m out of metaphors.
Now some facts.
Sold two books, a “Most Outrageous” (to a comix world acquaintance) and a “Cheesesteak” (to a legal world one). I also bought two, a volume of poetry and a short story collection, which we turned out to already have. Two authors gave Adele and I books (one poetry, one prose), and we gave them each a “Best Ride.” (I also sold two over-sized match books, designed and illustrated by S. Clay Wilson for a bar in Chicago, and his special needs trust will get all of the proceeds there.)
To add to my instruction in humility, I was out-grossed by my table-mate, a 12-year-old. Her book is about a pumpkin, and she’d written it when she was 10.
Best Remarks Directed to Me by Non-Buyers:
1. “It looks like fun, but Steve wants me to go.”
2. “I wasn’t aware of this issue.”
3. “It’s been a pleasure.”
4. “Who knew that instigating disasters would be more profitable than liquidating them.”
5. “You have an interesting….”
“Oeuvre?”
“Right.”
6 “I was on the staff of the “Berkeley Barb.”
7. “I bought that,” indicating “Pirates and the Mouse.”
“What’d you think of it?”
“I haven’t read it.”
8. “Cool. Very cool.”
We left two hours early.

Since I’ll be at BABF this weekend, sure to be a story in itself — if not a saga — I decided to run this week’s entry early.

One “Cheesesteak” sold. (Also a “Not today” and a “Good luck” collected.)

The sale…

As readers may recall, my health club is connected to a hotel. So I’m working out, dressed in not-walking-around garb of black shorts, black skull cap, and cut-down football jersey (“Who’s 27?” someone once asked me. “Me,” I said), and someone says “BIOB!”

“It’s Mike!” he says. “Friends’ Central!”

Now the accent is definite Philadelphia, and I can practically feel my brain flipping through every face it knew in high school, like they were on a deck of cards, adding 50 – 60 years, and… ZERO.

Finally he admits he’s pulling my leg. His words exactly. “Pulling your leg.” We had met the year before in the locker room when he’d he’d asked me a question. I’d recognized his accent and given him a “Cheesesteak.” Now he was back, visiting a daughter again and wanted to buy a copy for a friend.

The friend, Overbrook ’65, had been a straight “E” student, now works, if you can believe it, as a wedding singer.

Who says I don’t have wide marketing potential.