Yes I am Hawking my Book

I have been diligently reading how to market my now complete book, which if you haven't seen is now available on Amazon.com. I have also attempted to contact Barnes and Noble and Borders. As I figured there are all sorts of hoops one must jump through in order to make your book available through these big store. One idea I thought was possible however, was offered by Barnes and Noble. They suggest talking to the local manager of one of their stores and asking them to host an author's event. Of course all of the advertising is on the author but it is a way of introducing your book to a group of people all at once. As I was ruminating over this idea and liking it more each day I opened the paper today and read that one of my all time favorite authors is indeed having an event at the Barnes & Noble I was going to call. So here is how I imagined my meeting would go now with the manager.

"Hello, I my name is Janine Barbera. I am a local author with a book that just came out and I am inquiring about doing an event at your location."
Manager: "My location?"
Me: "Yes, Sir. I live locally and thought I could attract a decent number of individuals into the store."
Manager: "My location is sponsoring Nelson DeMille this week."
Me "Yes, I did read that, and frankly I planned to attend, he is one of my favorite authors."
Manager: "You see we really only host authors with a following. The idea is to attract people to the event and later they roam the store."
Me: "Yes, I do understand that and I thought perhaps on a slow week I would be able to have an event and bring some traffic into the store."
Manager: "What is a slow week? We are heading into the holiday season. And did I mention Nelson DeMille is having an event?"
Me. "Yes you did mention it."
Manager "Well we really only have events for established authors last week we hosted that guy from the Food Network."
Me: "Yes, I had never heard of him but I did see that."
Manager: "Hey I have a great idea...why not come to Nelson DeMille's event and ask him to mention your book? You know bring a bagful of copies and at the intermission tell him you are a big fan, these guys eat that up and maybe he will grab the mike and give you a shout out."
Me: "I'm not sure that is appropriate really..and I don't want to walk in like some bag lady.."
Manager: "No No trust me this will work...listen I feel bad for you but frankly this is the only way you will get any exposure here at Barnes & Noble. I have to go now, we are setting up for the DeMille event. Thanks for calling."