Sold one “Cheesesteak.” To a checker at the supermarket. Andronico’s.

My on-line publicist has generated no additional requests for review copies, but Goodreads notified me that my application to offer 10 copies for free in a lottery has been accepted. Like being able to give them away is something to be complimented.

Undaunted, I e-mailed 11 independent bookstores in-and-around Philadelphia inquiring if they would handle “Cheesesteak” on consignment. The only reply was a form e-mail containing tips for selling rare books and first editions. While all “Cheesesteak”s are first editions and, in a market-penetration sense “rare, this was not my intended plan, so I trashed this response.

I guess the week’s highlight was the young woman, short hair, body piercings, who, noting the book’s title, asked if I was from Philadelphia. (She even knew the “Spruce Hill” in Spruce Hill Press.) A Drexel graduate, computer science, she was visiting, investigating whether to move here. We had a pleasant chat but no sales resulted.

When the light is right, sitting in a Berkeley café, I can feel like a mini-Rick with many mini-llsas arriving.

Like yesterday, I was on-line ordering a just-discounted book by L, whom I had met in that very café, when in walked my recently retired lawyer-friend M. He bought a “Schiz” and while we were catching up — books, movies, gyms — since our last lunch, N, who had worked with M but had not seen him in 30 years, recognized his voice.

N had recently sold his law practice in Stockton and was traveling around the world with O, a Danish woman, while trying to decide where to live. They were in town for a three week at the Nyingma Institute to be followed by two weeks at Spirit Rock. I did not press my books on them since they seemed to be traveling light. (On the other hand, if all you have on the agenda is silence…)

While M, N and O were discussing the infelicities imposed by the homeless in Berkeley and immigrants in Copenhagen and I was completing my purchase of L’s book, P, a writer/illustrator of children’s book, offered me a Jodi Picault novel she had come across while cleaning out her shelves. I don’t read Jodi Picault myself, but I thought — correctly — Adele would like it. As I pocketed it, Q stepped away from the coffee bar. We had recently become acquainted when he’d bought a book and I’d learned he had given up architecture to independently study physics.

As it happened, at breakfast I had just read in the NYRB about “locality” and “spooky action” and if (and How) everything was connected and it had occurred to me, especially since recent events had turned me against politics, I might benefit from taking up physics myself, even though when I had tried to read “The Cosmic Code” — about the time M and N had last spoken — I had not gotten past The Heisenberg Principle.

Well, Adele said, when I recounted this story, you’re much smarter now.

I.
Sold two copies of “The Schiz.” One went to a woman in my high school class. One was to the woman at the health club whom it had reminded of Nathanel West. She intended it as a Christmas present for a nephew, whom she believed would like it.

“He’s a professor of philosophy…,” she explained.

Ah, I thought, always eager to gain insight into who might constitute my audience.

“…and he’s six-foot-six…,” she continued.

Hmmm, I thought.

“…and he collects typewriters.”

“Which book of mine did you want, exactly?” I said.

II.

People have continued to express regrets about missing the launch party. One had his conversational French class. One had an HOA meeting. One arrived after everyone had left. Too late, Milo suggested my reply should be, “Sorry you couldn’t attend. But copies remain. How many would you like?”

III.

Sometimes when I sit in the café with my “Buy Bob’s Books” sign beside my wares, I feel like a small shopkeeper looking hopefully out the door while potential customers walk by with no one stepping in.

The attendance Over/Under line was set at 60, and only 40 showed. (We had over half the cake left and over half the wine.)

People did not come because they forgot (she bought a copy later) or had a civic meeting (he bought one before) or a granddaughter’s birthday or were sick (two of these) or had a spouse in the hospital (another prior sale) or were going out of town (several people — and a couple sales) or had an Audubon meeting (“I like birds” — also a sale).

The goal was to sell 50 books at the party, and I sold 40.

But I had a great time. (My talk got many laughs; I did not read.)

I knew everyone there. Some I had not seen in a couple years. (I was reminded of a friend — he was there — who once said of one of the circles I draw from, “We only see each other now at Bob’s readings — or funerals.) My demographics skew highly elderly and white.

The analytics show my old basketball game and former law office and social circle well-represented. Café attendance was weak and the health club poorer than that. The two posters I put up and the mention of the party on Facebook and at The Comics Reporter drew no one.
(In fact, no one from the comic world came. Since this is where I am supposed to have “name recognition” and a “platform” and all those things marketing departments want, I suspect I may have cartons of books cluttering up the hall for quite a while.

Still, in the arts, I recognized, there are two axes. One is, Did I enjoy myself? The other is, How many copies did I sell? The trick is to embrace the first and ignore — or laugh at yourself when you don’t — the second.

In fact, that may apply to many areas of life.

Earlier I mentioned meeting an elderly woman who had known many Berkeley characters when she had lived here. One of those, whom I will call Jim Jeffreys, had owned a café I frequent as well as a noted Berkeley bar. I said I knew who Jim was. He used to be at the cafe most mornings, scowling at customers who dropped napkins on the floor, but that I had not seen him for some time. “If you do,” she said, “tell him ‘Oysters’ said hello.”

The next time I was at that café, I asked Rosario (not his real name either), the long time chief barista, if the owner still came in. “Jim Jefferys?” he said. “He died…” He counted. “Three years ago.”

“Oh.” I nodded. “Who owns the café now?”

“Jim had a partner,” Rosario said.

“The guy he used to play chess with?”

“Yes. And, Jim Johnson, before he died, he gave his part to me.”

“You’re the owner?” I said.

He shook his head.

“That’s why you’re here six, seven days a week.” I had seen Rosario clean the windows. I had seen him sweep the sidewalk. I shook his hand. “Congratulations.”

“I still don’t feel like owner,” Rosario said. “Most people, I don’t say I am owner.”

“That is so nice,” I said. “What I sweet thing.”

“Jim Jeffers tell me, before he die, ‘Rosario, now you don’t work so hard.’ But I have five children, two in college.” He smiled, maybe thinking into a future.

He returned to the espresso machine. Another latte. Another mocha. But I felt better about a number of things.

I’ll get to the Launch Party tomorrow.

But first…

Leading into The Event, I’d already sold four “Schiz”‘s and three “Cheesesteak”s. One “Schiz” went to a writer-pal and one to a woman at the French who wanted it before the reading. One “Chees3esteak” went to a therapist-friend of Adele’s, who came upon my display at Berkeley Espresso, and one to a fellow in my locker room aisle with whom I frequently talk politics (we disagree) and the Warriors (we don’t) but who hadn’t known I wrote. (I can be a private fellow — as well as, it seems, an exhibitionist).

One “Schiz” went to a middle-aged fellow at the French, whom I’d seen frequently but with whom I’d never spoken. (I guess my presence wore him down or his curiosity got the better of him.) Anyway, he turned out to be an architect, who quit the business because he got tired dealing with the city in order to study and write e-books about physics. Both other books went to a woman about my age, who lives in the Gold Country but was in town, staying at the hotel of which the French is part. She had lived in Berkeley many years and had known many of its more colorful characters, including an alcoholic cartoonist I had only heard about. I’m hoping to hear from her again

The most rewarding part of this experience has been the people I’ve met, whom I otherwise wouldn’t have, as well as deepening relationships that I already had.

Buy Bob’s Books: www.theboblevin.com