Reflection 9

On Friday I worked the Press's booth at the Mountaineer week craft fair. That was a nice change of pace because I worked from 4 p.m to 8 p.m. and was able to take four regular hours off during the week. I'm currently just slowly working through editing a book, and sometimes it's nice to have a day off from it. Besides getting my day off, it was great to see how many people love the Press's books. Our booth was in a different place that it has been in previous years and so many people said that they had looked for us there and were disappointed to think that the Press wasn't at the fair.

I got to see the majority of the West Virginia history and culture books the Press has done which was nice because when everyone in the office is discussing an old book, I generally have no idea what they're talking about. I had some interesting experiences too. In the first five minutes that I was alone there a woman asked me if I could get David Hardesty to sign the book he wrote. I didn't know what to say. Normally, I would think in a bigger press it would not be OK to bother and author for an autograph. However, here the staff has worked with Hardesty, and the woman was a local customer. When I had her ask Rachel she revealed that she is a close friend of Hardesty and seemed surprised when Rachel suggested she just ask Mr. Hardesty herself. Another woman kept telling me over and over that the cover of one of our CDs was her grandmother's cousin. I guess I wasn't showing the proper level of excitement because she just kept getting closer and saying it louder until she handed me the CD and walked away. I'm not really sure what her intention was.

For the most part, however, all the customers were friendly and interested in the books. We made a lot of sales in the four hours I was there. It was interesting to be on the selling end of working with books. I liked meeting people who were interested in things I had worked on, but overall I prefer the slow, sometimes tedious task of editing. I think it's important to experience a little of both parts of the process, though, because it can help you keep in mind who the audience for the books is. It was also nice experience for my poster presentation. Some people who came to the booth hadn't heard of the Press and I had to explain a little of what we did. Hopefully, I can get across what the Press does and what I do there at the presentation.