The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I guess I’ve been working in art for about 35 years. Some of it I’ve been doing okay at, even made a so-called Living at, and most of it, well, I’m not the poster child for Starving Artist, but maybe Anorexic Artist. We artists have a tough row to hoe in corporate America, that’s the truth, and so we try all sorts of strategies ranging from art fair booths to just giving up and getting a job, a real job. But probably too late for one that pays well or offers benefits and pensions. The money belongs to the Job Creators. Us creators, well, good luck.

I went up into the mountains this past weekend with a box of the Skeeter Daddle Blues, hoping to do a book reading and maybe sell a few copies. Ever since my old outlets for book sales dried up, I’ve been headscratching how to market these babies, get them out of my basement and into the hands of folks hungry for great literature. Tyee Store closed up and so did the Copy This Mail That office supply store that sold the first book Skeeter Daddle Diaries so well I ordered a second printing. The South End String Band CD’s sold like hotcakes too at those places, but when they closed shop, the only show in town was the Snow Goose Bookstore. And now they’ve shuttered their doors too. We probably sold two to three thousand CD’s before that. I sold maybe 1000 books. Not bad for a backwash.

This past year I haven’t sold more than ten books and the band is giving CD’s away at concerts for ‘the price we finally figured they were worth’. For free. One concert alone we handed out 150 CD’s.

A high tech, fast charging friend convinced me to try Amazon. Against my better judgement I signed on, figuring I’d be sending them a box of hot sellers they could pass out faster than candy on Halloween. But no, they wanted me to send one book at a time, priority mail, to their warehouse in Maryland or someplace far far away. I spent about $5 per book for mailing envelope and postage, losing a couple of bucks on each one. This went on for a couple of months, never enough sales apparently, to justify shipping them a full box. I might have continued this brilliant sales strategy right into bankruptcy but one day I noticed Amazon, love these guyz, had used copies of the Skeeter Diaries listed at 1.99 plus shipping. This was great. Me competing against me and the only winner was Amazon. It took me awhile to get out of this crummy cycle, the company not really responsive to any inquiries. In fact, they had no way to make inquiries.

I finally just kept sending them messages on the sales requests that the book was Out of Print. Which, finally, it was. Sadly, I buy my own book back from them occasionally just to have a few copies around. Cheaper than reprints by far. Bookstores competing against Bezos, like I mentioned at the last Snow Goose reading before they closed shop, are like Godzilla vs Bambi, it won’t be long before they’re toejam. Now I see where they’d like to be my printer too, print on demand. Probably ship them to me, then have me ship them back each sale. Lose even more money on every point of sale.

So I wish I had a tried and true strategy for you prospective artists out there looking for ways to sell your wares, I really do. It was always dog eat dog, but now we got Godzilla too. My only advice is to be like the little furry creatures during the Dinosaur Era, stay low, keep a close eye out, maybe move at night. I know, not much help, but the trick is to survive.

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Yesterday I drove 60 miles up the Stillaguamish River valley, past the Oso Slide that killed about 70 folks a couple of years ago and into the tarheel town of Darrington for, ironically enough, a book reading given by me, Skeeter Daddle. This gig was sponsored by the local library, a branch of the regional library the mizzus used to work at, the big one that puts on Ted Talks and concerts and such, all those extracurricular to entice the citizenry to view libraries not as museums for Gutenberg, but vibrant places where discourse is aplenty and kids are welcome.

I admit, I had a bad feeling about this, even told the mizzus to stay home and save herself five or six hours of wasted time when the weather was sunny and warm, when we should’ve been picnicking with our fresh caught crab and our newly dug potatoes for potato salad, enjoying a cold adult beverage or six, basking in the lazy hazy halcyon days that are upon us. As I drove up the valley, past the jagged peaks of Whitehorse Mountain and streams filled with glacial melt gurgling into the Stilly, I wondered why the hell I was doing this. There was no remuneration and the possibility of selling a book or two wasn’t going to pay for the gas my truck was using to get there, about ten or twelve bucks, I calculated.

Darrington, even at the height of summer weather, was pretty much a ghost town. I never did see the library that sponsored this gala event, but I did finally find the bookstore and coffee shop where the reading was being held. When I got there the joint was closed, lights off, nobody home. I drove around town some more, made note of the redneck bars I might make use of if this reading had been called off, maybe read to the tarheel transplants some of my little stories about folks quite a bit, possibly too much, like them. I was imagining a story, the last story, with the working title: The Death of Skeeter Daddle.

My reading was at 6. At ten to the owner of the store showed up and we talked while we waited for the crowd. At ten after Larry showed up, ordered an ice tea and we all talked while we waited for the rest of the mob. At about twenty after the librarian who’d arranged this with me showed up and we all three chatted amiably about the state of running bookstores and libraries and such while we waited for the stragglers to show up. At 6:30 we decided this was pretty much the Whole Show.

I guess if you want seconds of Humble Pie, this is how you do it. We all exchanged information about our lives, the kids, jobs, how we got to the place we live, all that stuff strangers introduce themselves with. An hour later the librarian left and Tony was closing shop. I gave him a pile of books and said see if anyone wants to buy them, they’re yours. I handed Larry one too. The box I’d brought just in case the reading public of Darrington was smitten with my excerpts, well, they rode home with me. I stopped along the route home and bought some cold ones. I gotta admit, it was a lonely picnic.

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