Just returned from the Jewish Book Fair front, where I gave my very tightly worded 2 minute presentation. Having rehearsed it repeatedly for the past month, but probably 100 times over the past two days that I've been in NY, I felt perfectly comfortable about getting up there to give my pitch -- until I saw my competition: Two stand-up comedians, one comedy screenwriter (who did an impeccable imitation of Woody Allen, who blurbed for him), the son of someone who helped bring down the Nixon administration, several NY Times and Business Week journalists, a couple of authors whose books had been on the New York Times best-sellers lists, (as well as certain authors who were sufficiently well-known that they didn't need to present) -- you know, 'ordinary' people like that, each of whom spoke impeccably, and humorously, during his/her two minutes. In fact, I had the good fortune (if you look at it that way) to be sandwiched between a woman who was a regular on Seinfeld (as a friend of Jerry's parents), and a good-looking former bond-trader-turned-author. I didn't get as many laughs as a lot of the other speakers, but I got some sounds of hearts being warmed by the conclusion of the talk.
So I wasn't really sure how it went, until the reception following the Meet the Author event, when both other authors and the attendees representing the Jewish Book Fairs in other cities told me how much they enjoyed the presentation, and asked me questions about my grandfather, and the process of writing/finishing the book. So I hope to be invited to at least a few of the cities (actually, I hope to be invited to more than a few, but considering that each city can only invite 20 authors, and considering the marque names, that doesn't leave a lot of spaces for people like me. But I did my best. Now I have to wait, and see.
Tomorrow I'm at an independent publishing conference all day. Then, for the rest of the week--9 Broadway and off-Broadway shows; that's my reward.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteWoo-hoo! When do you hear of the results?
ReplyDeleteWell done you. :-)