Yesterday afternoon, I had a book-signing at Berean Christian Bookstore. Man, did I promote it. I sent a promotional news brief to our little on-line community paper. I passed out flyers in the neighborhood around the store, hanging them on community bulletin boards anywhere within walking distance. I posted a flyer on the church bulletin board and handed out dozens of flyers at church. I posted it on my Facebook page and sent out invitations to a couple of dozen people. I sent out an email to everyone in the local area in my email address book, and then I sent out a reminder the week of my book signing. According to my marketing representative at the publishing company, they sent out notices to all the surrounding media.
At my book signing, I hailed everyone who walked in the door in order to give them a business card. That opened the door for me to talk to a few people and give them information on my book, although none of the walk-ins purchased a book. (I wasn’t equipped to take a credit card; otherwise, I would have sold a book to a walk-in.) All in all, I sold one book to the only person who purposely came to my book-signing. (Everyone else either forgot or got held up with unexpected challenges.)
This morning at church, my twelve year old grandson said to me, “Oh, grandma, I’m sorry that your book signing wasn’t a success.” I thought, What an incredibly teachable moment. I replied, “Jay, when God is in something, it is always a success. Remember, God looks at success differently than we do. To mankind, success is in the sales and money, but God considers other things. I talked to people. I handed out cards. And we never know where that will lead. But God does.”