Saturday night I was in Vancouver for the fourth book event for the Darkening Archipelago. I’d been looking forward to this for some time because the reading was in Chapters.

Breaking into Chapters is not easy, and many writers and some readers would argue not all together helpful. But to be a writer making a living from his craft in Canada, Chapters is not only necessary, but practically essential. So when I was offered the opportunity to read at the flagship Vancouver store on Robson Street, I jumped! Better still it was in conjunction with Earth Day celebrations being coordinated by The BC Book Publishers Association, the Association of BC Magazine Publishers and the Sierra Club BC. All good folks.

After a decent launch in Victoria I read to small but enthusiastic pairs and handfuls of supporters in Calgary and Canmore, Alberta. But Chapters would be different, I imagined. I knew that the groups involved had done a lot of promotion to their own networks, and I had sent a note to more than 200 people that I have a relationship with in Vancouver as well. My publisher and I beat the earned media bushes, and I set up the obligatory facebook events page.

And so the big night came. There were my books, gleaming and ready for the purchasing public to procure.

And there was the audience. There he was. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to this audience as The Andy.

The Andy was very engaged and very attentive. The Andy listened as I read excerpts from the opening chapter, where Archie Ravenwing meets his untimely end at the hands of an unknown assailant. The Andy engaged with me on the future of salmon farming, and the role of wild salmon in the coastal ecosystem. The Andy even indulged me as I read a brief passage that explains the title of the book; how wild salmon are like the current of electricity that surges through coastal ecosystems, and how we are literally pulling the plug on this essential charge, leaving the Archipelago and all of the coast in a growing darkness.

I think The Andy might have thought it awkward to clap at the end of the reading. But The Andy did uy a copy of both my environmental murder mysteries at the end, and I gratefully personalized the signature in each.

The Andy was, in a word, singular in its participation in Saturday nights reading. And for that, I thank him.

So I read to one person at the largest book store in Vancouver. (For honesty’s sake, I should point out that my wife, Jennifer, was also there. She’s been to all the book talks so far so I don’t think I can count her as an audience member. More a groupie at this point.) Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negros (one of the best selling books in Canada last year) read to 9 people at a big box store north of Toronto while his book was perched atop the best sellers list.

It’s a little daunting to sit in a Chapters store, with over 100,000 titles surrounding you, and an audience named Andy before you, and imagine that somehow you can make a living do this. But that’s what you have to do. It’s part of the dues system you have to pay. Yan Martel, author of Beatrice and Virgil, and most famously, Life of Pi, took two years off writing after that book was published in order to promote it. You have to show up. Even if nobody else does.

Saturday night at Chapters wasn’t a loss, not by a long shot. The store now has dozens of copies of both The Cardinal Divide and The Darkening Archipelago awaiting the book loving public, pleading not to be returned. At the very least, many media outlets in Vancouver were given the opportunity to review and write about the books, even if they haven’t yet. I had a great conversation with the audience named Andy, and Jenn and I spent a couple of pleasant hours wandering around East-end Vancouver on Sunday morning before heading back to Victoria. It’s on to Tofino next weekend to read at Darwin’s Cafe on Saturday night. Though ever humbled, I remain undaunted.

So if you’ll excuse me, somewhere around here there is a horse I have to get back on.