Sometimes the Magic Works Read Online Free PDF

and welcoming toward everyone you encounter, from the staff of the bookstore to the readers who buy your book to the customers who don’t. If you are, there is a better than even chance that they will be cheerful back. Didn’t we learn this on
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
about a gazillion years ago? Speak to everyone. Make them aware of the fact that you are grateful to be there, anxious to chat, and ready to answer questions if they have any. Never sign a book without looking at and speaking directly to the reader, and then thank them for choosing to take a chance on you.
    Think about it. How can you not do this? Every one of those people has come out to meet you because they love your work. Or if they are there purely by chance, your response to them might determine whether or not you end up with a new reader. Either way, they are paying you a compliment. They are giving up their time and maybe their money for you. You are the only one who can make them feel it was worthwhile for them to do so.
    The staff of the bookstore will appreciate this, too. They want to know something about you, a writer whose work they sell. You owe them that opportunity. You owe them your thanks. You owe them a good experience for their customers, who will come back to this store remembering what meeting you was like. If the experience is a good one, everything that surrounds it tends to be remembered as having been good, too. The staff of the bookstore will remember how you conducted yourself, no matter whether two people appeared or two hundred. They will remember you when someone asks for your books. Perhaps they will suggest your book when a customer asks for a recommendation for a new author.
    This is not always easy. Disappointments and discouragement await us as authors at every turn. We set ourselves up in anticipation of being knocked down. Someone is always ready and willing to tell us how our books could have been done better. Someone is always close at hand to point out how we failed. Our self-esteem is closely tied to our writing, and someone is always ready to step on it. That, too, is part of the territory. But understanding what it is that we are trying to accomplish when we throw off our solitary trappings long enough to face our public at a book signing will make us better able to set a balance to whatever happens.
    Looking at it like this, it becomes clear that the failure of some twenty-five years ago lies not with the young woman who chose to pass up the chance to buy my book, but with me. I am the one who reacted badly. I am the one who based success or failure entirely on whether or not a sale was made instead of a connection formed. It is a hard lesson, but an important one. I have never forgotten it.
    I like to think that the young woman eventually thought better of her decision not to buy a copy of my book. I like to think she went back and bought it later, became an avid reader of the entire series, and ultimately introduced it to her children. I like to think she became a huge fan.
    Which explains, I suppose, why I find it so easy to write fantasy.

 
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    I cannot imagine life without books any more than
I can imagine life without breathing.
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    I NFLUENCES
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    I HAVE ALWAYS wanted to be a writer.
    There might have been a time very early on when I wanted to be a cowboy or a fireman, but I can’t remember it. I know I liked playing at being cowboys and firemen, but I don’t think I ever felt that I wanted to be either so badly that I couldn’t live if I didn’t find a way to do so.
    But that was exactly how I felt about being a writer. Once I knew enough about life to understand that I had to grow up and actually do something besides play with toys, writing was what I wanted to do. I don’t know if that realization happened all at once, but I suspect it pretty much did. What matters is that it might not have happened at all if it weren’t for a handful of people