Celebrity book signing at a trade show=asshole magnet

The BBQ Pit
1
  1. That’s great that you are a “Organizational Expert” and think we are doing such a poor job organizing this event. Sorry, Ma’am, but we are just salesmen, and are do not organize book signings for a living. We are just trying to help at the request of the celebrity’s handlers.

BTW, if you are an “Organizational Expert”, as you claim, then why does it look like you picked your clothes out in 15 seconds, your teeth are crooked, and your hair is out of place? I have no idea what an “Organizational Expert” is, but if you are so good at it, then when is YOUR book signing?

Thanks for your opinion. However, I’m going to trump your stupid opinion with concrete, solid, advice: GET A REAL JOB, you sanctimonious twat.

  1. No, sorry, one book per person, even for OTHER exhibitors at this trade show. See, you pain in the ass bitch, the books are being heavily discounted, with proceeds going to a charity, and for that reason, we want to make sure as many customers who PAID FOR A TICKET to this trade show get a book as possible.

As a fellow vendor, you should know better. I don’t care that you have been pestering me for books since 10 o’clock this morning, asking a million questions about the book signing, while we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off to make sure this event goes smoothly for our customers. And I do not give a rat’s ass that your booth is right next to mine. I never met you before, what, now we are best friends? Fuck you. One book per person.

BTW, here’s another clue. Yelling at me in line in front of those paying customers behind you because I won’t let you buy a second book isn’t going to change my mind either. Now, fuck off, and be happy I sold you the book that I did, and get it signed.

  1. The books go on sale at 5:45. It is now 4:15. You can wave your money in front of my face all you want, but I have been given EXPLICIT instructions to NOT sell one book until 5:45. The celebrity does not get here until 6 anyway. How does me selling you a book on the sly get it signed any faster?

Sir, I feel badly that you are handicapped and can’t stand in line for that long. Stop waving the fucking money in my fucking face, take your crippled fucking ass and have a seat over there in our booth, and I PROMISE you, you will get a book, and you will get put ahead in line when the time comes. You WILL get what you want.

Just stop asking me for favors just because you are disabled.

  1. What is our “plan” for all the large number of people waiting to get their book signed? Let’s check out that brilliant plan. It’s 4:00. The Celebrity gets here at 6:00. We sell books at 5:45. Guess what? That means the 30 or so people that are here already will WAIT in line until he gets here. That’s the plan. Now here’s YOUR plan, lady:

Get in line. It’s not hard, I am sure the nice people that have been here a half an hour already will be happy to show where the END of the line is. Now BEAT IT, and leave us alone.

  1. Yes, that’s a GREAT marketing idea. Put flowers and a sign with our company logo directly behind the celebrity so the company logo is shown in each photo taken. I understand that you are the world’s greatest marketing mind, as you have reminded me twice now that “It’s all about marketing.”

That explains why you write a shitty, free newspaper that nobody reads, and are not the Vice-President of Marketing for Apple Computers.

And I appreciate that even though you don’t work for either our company, or the celebrity, you have been kind enough to come over and offer this expert advice. So kind, as a matter of fact, that you have come over with your cheerful suggestions MULTIPLE TIMES this afternoon.

Here’s the problem, pal. The celebrity will be here in twenty minutes. We now have HUNDREDS of customers in line, and more arriving by the minute, many with questions, needing directions, and badgering us with special requests. We also have a cash box and boxes of books sitting over there that need to be watched. YOU, by coming over here three times in 15 minutes with your ideas, are NOT helping.

We fucked up and missed the boat on the fucking flowers and sign. This is the first meet and greet our company has ever done, and I have a suspicion this oversight will not start a downward spiral into bankruptcy for our company. Trust me, Mr. Madison Avenue, we will do better next time.

So, for now, take your fucking advice, get the FUCK out of the booth, and leave me the FUCK ALONE.

  1. Oh, gee I’m sorry you missed the celebrity, and that you paid for a ticket to this trade show SPECIFICALLY so you could have your 5 year old book by him signed, and your are a HUGE fan and demand we do something (and that you indeed, did NOT come here to take a look at our products).

Here’s the problem. We advertised he was going to be here at 6. By 7:20, everyone got an autograph, and left, happy (put THAT in your pipe and smoke it, Miss Organization!).

There were no more people. We did NOT advertise a stop time, so he left. Now, hundreds of people were here well ahead of 6 o’clock, which begs the question:

Being such a “BIG fan”, WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU???
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I want to conclude this rant by saying that 99% of the people that showed up were very, very cool. They were appreciative and patient, and just thrilled to have a chance to meet this celebrity. As a matter of fact, even though we ran out of books, a handful of the people actually donated to the charity anyway. These are all nice, wonderful people and this rant is not directed at them.

Sadly, the politeness of all these customers only accentuates the doucheiness of this handful of ignorant assholes, and so this rant is directed at a small group of supreme jerkoffs who think its more important to put their needs and wants above that of everyone else.

But thats OK, for these people, its all about THEM, isn’t it?

2

I’ve never attended one of these things, but—why, exactly, would you wait until 15 minutes before the “celebrity” shows up before beginning to sell the books? If there are (presumably) people already there ready to buy?

3

I’m dying of curiosity - who is the celeb and what’s the book?

I totally understand if you don’t want to say for privacy reasons.

p.s. Sorry you had to deal with so many douchebags. I hate dealing with the public!!

4

I’m not Shakespearo, nor a bookseller, but there are several reasons I can see:

  1. It’s a charity event, and they want buyers to stay there for the pitch;

  2. It’s a book signing, and there’s no advantage to having people milling around clutching their books for an hour or two (to the contrary, the slow accumulation of wandering gits could cause a mob at the signing table);

  3. It’s a new book, and the publisher does not want advance copy showing up on blogs, not do they want an angry outcry from those who followe the rules;

  4. It’s a trade show, and the organizers don’t want events of this type starting until the daytime visitors have cleared out;

I’ll guess that it’s mainly reason 3, plus a little managerial control-freakery; I’d also guess that there’s a contract somewhere that says that’s how it will be.

5

The fan might very well have been at work, on his/her way home from work or had other obligations that s/he couldn’t get out of in order to attend a book signing. Not everyone can get off work at 5 PM on the dot, or can get off earlier. And some people need to eat dinner pretty promptly after getting off work. I’ve only attended a few signings, but most of them last more than a couple of hours (and frankly, I’m not sure how the author/celebrity can sign his/her name for that length of time). I’ve never seen one that lasted less than 90 minutes. If the crowd slacks off, then usually the celebrity will kick back for a few minutes, massage some life back into the signing hand, and chat with the organizers, IME.

Yeah, when you get people in crowds you WILL have a few assholes who make themselves noticed. But I think that you dropped the ball in this instance of timing.

6

William’s non union Mexican equivalent, of course. The book was “El Sueno de una
Noche de Verano”

7

The book was heavily discounted for charity and for the book signing. My guess is that this would prevent people from showing up JUST to buy the book at a discount, and then take off without getting involved in any of the other marketing efforts.

Also, WTF is it saving you to buy the book way early if you’re going to get it signed and have to wait in line to do so?

8

It really is, and the sooner the rest of us would just get it through our heads, the smoother the world would run.

I dunno; if I knew a celebrity was going to be somewhere at 6 and I showed up at 7:20, I don’t think I’d be blaming the celebrity for not being there any longer. I don’t hang around places just for the hell of it, and I wouldn’t expect a celebrity to do so. If there was a definite time span (6-8 or something), then I’d be a bit put out.

It was Stephen King, wasn’t it? Mike Holmes? Al Gore?

9

As a fundraiser, I don’t get this. Surely if there’s an author signing with “hundreds of people” in attendance, people are going to buy that book even if it’s at sticker price. Then the charity would get–get this–even more money. As it is, you get to tell the charity, “Good news…we sold hundreds of books and you got almost nothing! Isn’t that great!”

I love this “industry”, but incidents like this remind me that a lot of people are here because they can’t cut it in business.

10

Er…how do you know the mechanics of this event? Maybe they heavily discounted the books so they could get a bunch of people to pay for tickets (knowing they would get a great deal on the book), and the ticket proceeds go to Charity, and not the book proceeds?

11

This was on a Saturday.

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People don’t work or have other obligations on Saturday?

13

Duke makes a good point, we probably could have squeezed another few sheckels out of the marks, but this was a correct response.

The purpose behind the signing was to not really raise a huge amount of money for charity, that was an idea bolted on months after this was set up, with the celebrity’s consent. The book itself is a few years old, so charging full list probably would not be fair. And the celebrity was well paid for this appearance, so there was no further incentive to put money in their pocket.

Figuring that the fans already paid their ticket to the trade show, and the purpose of this event was to publicize our booth and our product, it made no sense to try and gouge people, even for a charity.

I was at a book signing featuring a hall of fame pro athlete at a local casino this past Fall. He was signing his new book, and I was anxious to meet him, and was prepared to pay full price for the new book and have it signed.

When I got there, not only did I have to pay for the book, which was fine, but also an additional $25 to have it signed. I figured I was there anyway, so I splurged, and got my book signed, and I also asked the athlete if he could sign an item I brought with me, but his handler said he did not have permission to do so because of his contract.

I didn’t raise a fuss, but deep down I thought, jeez, I just shelled out something like $60, for all that money you cant hook me up with one more signature, huh. But from what I understand, thats how sports signings go and I was just happy to have landed a signature.

I can only imagine what would have happened at this trade show if we pulled the same thing with these customers.

14

Come on, that’s weak.

The majority of Americans have Saturday off.

As for other “obligations”, if you are a big enough fan, you would reschedule those obligations around the book signing. If not, then clearly these obligations to family, church, friends etc etc are not as important as seeing the celebrity.

15

What color is the sky on your planet? You think that because “the majority of Americans” have Saturday off, this guy must have had it off too? Your reasoning skills leave much to be desired.

And yes, it is possible to be a huge fan of somebody and still have other things that are more important and can’t be rearranged: jobs, child care, family obligations, travel schedules, meetings, and just plain life. It’s called being responsible. This guy may have behaved like a jerk, but there are plenty of possible reasons why he couldn’t be there on the dot of six.

16

Probable Translation: “He hates when people bring other shit for him to sign, but he’s also image conscious and doesn’t want to look like a jerk. Therefore, he makes me lie to people about a fake contractual clause when he really just doesn’t want to do it.”

17

Bwa hahahaha…good one! :rolleyes:

18

They DON’T???

OK, let’s assume I’m wrong. When should we have this book signing next time. Let’s take a vote.

Sunday at 4am?

Monday at 930 pm?

How can we make EVERYONE happy?

19

You have to be shitting me.

20

This has got to be the stupidest argument I have ever heard. . . . you’ve got to be kidding me with this nonsense . . .

Not 6. If they got there by quarter after 7, they would have got their book signed.

Did you know only 2 parties showed up and complained after he left? Maybe the celebrity should have stayed until Midnight?

Like I am trying to point out to Guiniastasia, you can’t possibly have a book signing when every one of your fans is off from work.