No sales in the café, again.
But two of my high school classmates, one of whom lives in North Carolina and one in France, let me know they had taken advantage of The Schiz’s wider availability to order copies – and the Tar Heel had his snatched away by a friend as soon as it arrived.
Word has also reached me that only 29 copies remain in my distributor’s warehouse. I am aware this does not mean they will be sold, but I am flabbergasted. Just that morning I had come away from Stephanie Ruhle and her CNBC panel thinking, Boy, did you pick the wrong time to release your book. (Later, I reassured myself, At least you killed off your predators and didn’t elect them to the U.S. Senate.)
And word reached me that Outlaws, Rebels…, (Fantagraphics. 2005) has sold out. This news surprised both me, who had been trying to restock his supply on hand with a half-dozen copies, and my publisher, who had been promising for months to send them. This was, we agreed, good news, but it made him no more eager to publish my new collection. (Forthcoming, from Spruce Hill Press. 2018).
And finally, the NYC friend, who had arranged six months ago for several of my books to be handled on consignment by a neighborhood book store, advised me that they “have their own south wall counter section.”
“Take a picture,” I said.
“You need the store owner’s permission,” she said. She is a stickler for etiquette and formalities. “Describe the purpose of the photo and how it will be used.”
“The purpose of the picture is so I can look at it,” I said. “You think I’m gonna splash it on a billboard?”
“There should be a business arrangement,” she said. “Confirm if the photo should be printed and sent by U.S. mail at the author’s expense, or via a digital file.”
“I can’t even get this guy to pay me,” I said. (See earlier Adventures.)
So if you’re on the Upper East Side with an I-phone…

Among my favorite reactions to my writing was the guy who launched a thread at the old Comics Journal message board: “Why Do You Keep Publishing Articles By Bob Levin?”
It meant, I realized, that not only had I written something he hated, but that I had written it so distinctively that he could connect it to something I had written months before which he’d also hated.
Which meant I had a style and approach – an identity – going for me.
Now I’ve had another emphatic line drawn.
“Bob Levin is a great finisher,” wrote a First of the Month responder about my recent “Fox and Foes” (Nov. 12, 2017), a piece in which I had reflected upon a 45-year-old, barely-known memoir by Stanley Robinson, a Chicago police officer:“His pieces always end well…,” that responder wrote. “I’ve learned to trust Levin’s process.”
This one made me smile. It recognized that I can sometimes take a circuitous route to arrive at where I’m going, a route which, in this case, began with my musings about literary style and ended, 3000-words later, linking to contemporary headlines which had been nowhere in my original contemplations. In fact, when I’d learned of Robinson’s book, I’d known I wanted to write something about it, but I did not know what that could be. In fact, when I began writing, I still did not know. It was only when I reached the last line, I thought, AHA!
The point is that it does not take much to firm up one’s resolve to keep doing what one believes is worth doing, as both my recent responder and that forgotten poster firmed up me.

Sold a “Schiz” to a writer-friend. His pattern has been to arrive at the café on a morning of errand-running and announce he is out of cash.

But this time I was waiting. “I take credit cards,” I said and ensnared him with my Square and amazing professionalism.

Meanwhile, Google says, “The Schiz,” through its new distributor, has become available in an additional country (Canada). Still no reviews and I have neither pursued, nor been pursued by, any readings/signings. But I used the occasion to re-email those on among my “Contacts” who had not bought the book when it first became available. This led to reported sales to four fellows from my freshman dorm (giving me a majority among those still living), a guy I’ve known since summer camp ’58, a cousin of Adele’s, the widow of a minister I knew in Chicago, a film-maker who interviewed me for a documentary on Dan O’Neill, and another college buddy who wanted copies for his grandchildren. (“If they’re over 18, you have my blessing,” I said.) Plus a secretary and an attorney from a firm I worked at in the ’70s seem to be leaning in the “Submit Order” direction.

Could they all have been waiting for the price to drop?

Anyway, my Amazon ranking may never be this high again.

No sales.

In other news, Google confirms “The Schiz” is now available from sources other than me. Amazon. Target. Thriftbooks. Powell’s, Fresh Comics, Atomic Books, Angus & Robertson and Booktopia (both in Australia), and a place in Sweden.

Now all I need is a reason for people to buy it, given the always-problematic first chapter (despite its wonderful Shary Flenniken illustration) whose off-puttingness may have only been enhanced by the current climes. (If that hooks anyone’s interest, consider it a sentence swell-done — and your triggers well-warned.) We’ve mailed at several dozen review copies without anyone, as far as Google Alerts has told me, rendering an opinion. So if anybody has five stars to spare, or four even…

I don’t even have any readings scheduled. I’d blame my publisher for not arranging them, but then I realized, Hey, you’re your publisher! Maybe I’ll drop into a couple stores and if they have copies, indicate my availability, but I’m afraid I’ll learn, “Sorry. But we’re booked until Mother’s Day.”

Guess the momentum will have to self-generate.

No sales.
But encounters with the public continue.
1.) “Bob!” excitedly exclaims my former accountant. But our reunion ends with her “Maybe some other time” and me wondering how many thousands of dollars I had paid her without one workable off-shore tax shelter resulting.
2.) S, a graduate student in polymer chemistry (“Metal organic framework,” he explained, as if that would help) wanted to know if my books were Kindle-ready (“Nope.”) and asked for my card.
3.) I, a young fellow in a grey crewneck sweater, asked, “Can I take a look?”
“Be my guest. You a writer?”
“No. But I like to read.”
He picks up “Cheesesteak.” It turns out that, when he was at Syracuse, he would visit his brother at Penn and they would eat them. I did not suggest he chop mine up, dice some onion, and toss it on the griddle.
4.) And finally A, a woman with wild, mid-back length, white hair, sits across from me, slides over a “Schiz” and leafs through it while enjoying her pastry and coffee.
“You think I’m a fucking library?” I do not say.
It turns out she worked for Richard North Patterson. We discuss the literary matters and the business thereof. “It looks like something I’ve never seen before,” she says as she puts my book down.
I take that as a compliment.
[Bob’s books are available from this very web site.]

Sold four “Cheesesteak”s.
[NOTE: Only about a dozen remain. While a second printing is imminent, if you want Mint Condition, semi-priceless, signed first edition… ACT NOW.]
They went to the formerly-of-Overbrook-Park, now Sacramento-residing civil rights attorney (See: “Adventure of a couple weeks ago), who intends them as gifts for family members, and represents my largest bulk-sale since I was happened upon by that bi-polar woman who was having a manic episode. (See: “Adventure” of a couple weeks before that.)
In other news…

“You’re (Name of Noted Berkeley Author)?” I inquired of the fellow on the adjoining health club treadmill.
“I am,” he said.
“I’m Bob Levin,” I said. He registered the anticipated not-a-farthing’s-glimmer-of-recognition-or-interest, but I was sporting my “Poets & Writers” t-shirt, so… “Do you do book blurbs?”
“I don’t. I used to, but I got so many requests, I didn’t have time to read the books.”
“Ahh. Understood.”
The vigor of my workout failed equally to raise any curiosity about me or my work. Neither did the man-of-the-people quality I demonstrated in my banter within his earshot with the Laotian locker room attendant.
Not to mention my adroitly locking myself out of my locker requiring assistance from the same Laotian.