One for each copy of Otorongo I placed in a bookstore in the last two days!
First there was Adobe Books on 24th Street in San Francisco, referred there by a friendly soul in Dog Eared Books on Valencia, after she gave me the getting familiar "We don't do that well with erotica," brushoff. "But...you might try Adobe Books on 24th."
Voila! In I walk in my blue blazer and wearing my blue beret (between jobs) with a copy of Otorongo in my hands, out I walk with $9.50 in my pocket and Otorongo...is it to be believed? Left behind in the bookstore!! Believe it or not, for the rest of the day I was suffering from separation anxiety! What will happen to that copy of my book? Will anybody buy it? If they do, where will they take it? How will they treat it? What will ever become of it? A year from now? Ten years from now? Longer? After I die? It's completely out of my control and I will never know.
So there's the two bucks I made off of @jacinto2 who bought the e-book off of Amazon, and the $9.50 I made from Josephine at Adobe Books yesterday. I've made back $11.50 of the $15,000 I've invested in this fun project.
So today I'm in Oakland. On a job. Again disguised in my blue blazer and my blue beret. I take my subversive sliver of erotica into the littlest most unassuming bookstore in the world on 13th Street during my lunch break. Found by asking for nearby bookstores on Google Maps. It's literally around the corner. Two minutes from where I'm standing. I don't even know the name of the bookstore! Let's call it Vortex Books.
Cool! You've been writing since you were 15! How come you never published before? Yeah, I'll check it out! Leave it and come back later, I'll be here until 7:00.
Job over, I'm back at 4:00. "Yeah, we don't do that well with erotica. But...you might try Pegasus Books in Berkeley."
It's 28 minutes away according to Google Maps and it's on my route.
It takes 29 minutes. I'm gettin' used to putting quarters in the new fangled parking meters and fishing in my trunk, in the box of books I've got there. Armed with an innocent copy of Otorongo, and off work now, but still wearing my blue disguise, the beret tilted at a rakish angle going for the artiste effect, and my best would-you-trust-this-68-year-old-man look on my face -- definitely not! -- into Pegasus Books on Solano I go.
These folks are all business. The beautiful Goth girl with the tattoo. The handsome hairy guy who notices me and gives me the consignment form to fill out. They don't even examine the book. They just take it. I sign the form. I'm gone.
Two books in two days! Two black panthers sniffing Scheherazade's pussy. What seemed impossible now seems possible. After several abject failures I've succeeded in getting Otorongo into two bookstores.
So -- if you want to buy a copy and you live in San Francisco or Berkeley -- Adobe Books on 24th Street and Pegasus Books on Solano are the places to go! Act fast before someone else gets there first.
And if you DO live in San Francisco or Berkeley, and if you DO go looking for Otorongo there -- well, blessings on your profane soul! And let me know how it works out. I'd love to know.