Direction from Above?

It should be so simple, yet it is not. Businesses are eager to donate the prizes, I posted about the drawing on Facebook, Linkedin and Yahoo, I set up a dedicated webpage (http://www.bethdurkee.me/drawing.html) but people are extremely unwilling to sign up to win them. I cannot figure it out. This is just an awareness campaign. All I want is for people to get to know my name and be aware, just aware, of the names of my books. That's all and the prizes are NOT lame. Some may be a little lame, but some are totally NOT.

For example in the Milwaukee area, a well-known restaurant donated "free pizza buffet for a year," and a dance company donated free Salsa dance lessons for two. Are those lame? I think not! In Ireland, a cell phone company donated a free phone with worldwide calling privileges, a "chemist" [perfume company] donated a bottle of perfume, some stores even donated CASH. Lame? No! So if the prizes are good and I am not asking anyone to buy anything, what is the problem with getting people to sign up for the drawing? I have no idea. I have been racking my brain about it for weeks.

Enter a discussion with North American fan club president, Natalie. Together we decided that the problem must be just getting the word out about the drawing. Then Natalie came up with the idea to put flyers under windsheild wipers. Well, it turns out to carry some stiff fines to do that in a lot of cases, so that is a no-go. BUT it led to the idea of asking businesses to just put some little notices in their stores for us. Not a bad idea and I set about it yesterday.

First place I went to put the notices: The public library.  Guess what? Because I am not a non-profit organization, they will not put out the notices. Now I don't generally label things I don't understand. But, honestly, the LIBRARY won't put up notices for an author to give away free prizes for people to become aware of her books? That is, quite frankly, stupid.

Next stop: My cell phone from the library parking lot. Thankfully, I brought a phone book in the car with me.

First call: Small Christian book store. Success! I was invited to bring by what I had, with the promise it would be put out.

Second call: The local branch of the largest used book store I know of. The district manager of this franchise put out my bookmarks a few months ago. I figured the branch manager would put out my prize drawing notices. * Sigh * He was very nice about saying no, and invited me to put up my flyer on the back board between the bathroom stalls (where all other notices go). It is there now.

Third call: The local branch of the largest new book store in the USA. The manager was, again, quite nice. He offered to put notices in the break room for me but said the store has a strict "No Soliciting" policy. I did not bother to stop by. Frustrated and disillusioned, I determined to take my notices to the Christain book store before making any more calls.

In the parking lot of the church where the book store is located, I walked toward the church with my notices and a complementary copy of my book in hand. The building is enormous and I had NO IDEA which door was the front, so I figured I would just walk in to one that was unlocked and hope for the best. I was not even to the sidewalk when a woman in a car hailed me.

Either I did not look as confused about which door to enter as I felt or I just have a heavenly glow about me because she seemed to think I belonged there. She asked if morning Bible study had been cancelled. Rather than broadcast my business to the whole world, I walked over to explain to her that I was just there to drop off a book and some notices and that I had no idea about the Bible study. While I was at it, I handed her one of the notices. This simple act led to a short conversation and a series of questions on her part. It turns out that she adores Christian Romance and she wound up buying the book right out of my hands! In fact, not only did she buy the book out of my hands, but she also paid more than I asked for it. I was blown away.

Was this direction from above or just a freak accident? I have no idea. If it is some kind of direction, what does it mean? Does it mean I should start vending my books in church parking lots? Strange. Just strange. Let's see what happens today to follow that up. I think I will look up more Christian book stores in my phone book.