What I Learned Selling my Books in a Bar

By Sara Davison @SaraDavison19

As soon as we walked into the room, we knew we were wasting our time. A friend of mine and I had been invited to have a book table at an event in our city. Neither of us knew much about what the event actually was, but since it was late November and they were looking for vendors, we assumed it was a Christmas market of some sort.

We were wrong. The venue was a bar, and the attendees, mostly men, sat around at small tables, drinking beer and watching live local rock bands.

My friend and I walked in, me carting my Christian romantic suspense novels and her with her romance book and a devotional, and both of us started laughing. Definitely not our target market.

Gamely, we set up our displays on a small table in a cramped space along the back wall of the bar. For two hours and forty-five minutes, very little happened. The odd person wandered by our table, but few spoke to us and no one asked about our books, let alone bought any. Shocker.

Then, just as we were thinking about starting to pack up, a young couple came over and actually picked up our books. The guy asked us what they were about. Almost shouting to be heard over the loud music, I told him that, while the stories are all different, the common theme running through every book I write is that, no matter what we are going through in life, we are never alone. God is always with us.

I thought the man was going to burst into tears. “That’s exactly what I’m looking for,” he said. “I can’t believe you’re here today.” He ended up buying a few of our books and thanked us profusely before heading back to his table.

My friend and I looked at each other and I said, “Well, if that’s the only reason we were supposed to be here today, then it was well worth it.”

There is a lot of truth to the old adage that God works in mysterious ways. So often we can’t understand why we find ourselves in certain circumstances, as it feels as though nothing good could possibly come from what is happening. But God is always at work. He has given each of us gifts and talents and passions to use in order to serve Him and bring Him glory, and if we are obedient to use those gifts, even in situations where it seems unlikely they will have an effect, He will use us to carry out His plans. For me, as an author, that means trusting that if God has given me a story, then He has a purpose for it—He wants the particular message my books convey to reach the people He knows need to hear it. That might be a million readers, or it might be one guy in a bar searching for something but not sure how or where to find it.

All my friend and I needed to do was show up, take a seat, and wait to see what God would do next.

Sara Davison is the author of four romantic suspense series—The Seven Trilogy, The Night Guardians, The Rose Tattoo Trilogy, and two sparrows for a penny—and a two-time Carol Award winner. Like every good Canadian, she loves coffee, hockey, poutine, and apologizing for no particular reason. Get to know Sara better at www.saradavison.org.