This weekend, I was selling at a Spring Book Fair. We were inside an enormous “event tent,” but it was 80 degrees at first. We were all sweating. Around 2:00, a cold front came through. If you’ve never experienced a cold front in the South, you may not understand, so let me explain:
The temperature instantly dropped about 10 degrees. Heavy winds gusted through (the tables nearest the entrance had to weigh down their stuff). And torrential rain poured down, drumming on our tent. THEN the fun began:
We were all, naturally, looking up at the big tent, hoping it wouldn’t leak. Or blow apart. Then the author beside me looked down and said, “Oh. We have water.” Turns out the parking lot was a bit sloped, so water flowed down it at my feet and under my table… where my boxes of books were sitting.
The water flow didn’t cover the entire area, just one swath angled across the fair. The two other tables I saw in the water had their stuff in plastic bins. I had cardboard. So a mad caper ensued in which myself and three other authors were yanking my boxes out and stacking them wherever we could find: on my table, on my stool, on top of some PVC used for banners.
The good news is: no books were harmed. My boxes were very thick cardboard, so the water didn’t get through. The box holding some of my supplies was damaged, but no big deal. The organizer came by after the rain subsided and asked if I wanted some plastic to put on the ground to put my boxes on. I said: “I’m standing in a half inch of water, so I don’t think that would work.” Good thing my shoes were waterproof.
And readers STILL showed up in the middle of all of this! I had to compliment them, even while I explained why I was leaning on an unsightly pile of boxes. In the end, no real harm was done, and I had another story to tell. Adventures in book sales, everyone. You never know what will happen.
