I could be writing—seriously writing, not just putting in time at the store as customers blindly pass by my book. Years have led to this date, with dreams tempered by reality—years of watching customers choose the “hot” title, leaving the better book beside it on the shelf.

The second day of my “launch” is winding down, that magical time for a writer when the hype generates sales, like a newborn baby stirs awe and an almost jealous desire to hold it. Fifty volumes make a bold display. A full box sits in the staff room and another box waits in the van in the parking lot—just in case. Sales have reached a total of five. Someone has lopped a zero off the plan, a second zero off the dream.

I keep slipping behind the counter, dropping the “author” role for a few moments, trying to feel useful. I’m not supposed to be an employee today. I’m the feature author! The title becomes increasingly heavy as the day gets older. Strange that I’ve envied authors their book signings—longed to be in their shoes, worked and planned for this day, dreamed and schemed and budgeted.

My wife reminds me frequently that the best poets only become famous after they are dead. Having fed a writer for years now, she will never confess to how many times she’s been tempted to hurry things along just a bit.

The store has filled and emptied several times. The bell on the cash register rings, but my sales stay at five. There must be something significant or special about that number. Would the significance be greatly diluted by a zero behind the five?

Disappointment? You bet. Distress? No.

I’ll not claim this book as God’s answer to every reader’s prayers, or that it meets some great, gaping need in the marketplace. I will claim a sense of calling, a need to write that is more than just an addiction to ink on paper. I’ll claim even now, a sense of rest in this effort—a conviction that I have followed God’s calling upon my life, that it was not a mistake to write or publish this book—that the time, effort and money invested was worth it.

I have worked for years in a bookstore. The almost constant turnover of titles, the shifting of old inventory to the bargain centre or returning it to the distributor when possible, always means shifting somebody’s dream off the shelf.

I’m suddenly intensely conscious of books I have read, loved and promoted, but that haven’t sold in significant numbers. The store’s survival depends on turning that stock over, replacing it with something fresh. I know that. At a gut level I know that. But I also know in a completely new way what it feels like as an author to have my title—apparently—invisible.

The books I haven’t read are also someone’s dream. It is harder to pass by a title where I know the author personally, yet I can never read all I wish to, or purchase every book I long to support. Even as a church librarian with a passion for books and a budget to invest, I pass a thousand dreams by for every one that finds its way to the library shelves.

Promoting the work of others brings me special delight. Promoting my own work feels completely wrong. It is one thing to do the resume-type stuff on paper, but to walk up to a customer and say, “This is a great book. It has this and this and this strength—oh, and by the way, I’m the author,” just doesn’t fit the personalities I know among most Christian writers.

When it does fit a personality, I usually don’t want to read the book. However, if pride is a problem for writers, book signings just may be the perfect solution. By the time a friend purchased two copies of my book at the end of the first day of my launch—tripling my day’s sales–pride wasn’t my biggest struggle.

Not quite the launch of my dreams, but dying rich and famous has never been my biggest goal in life. I have also learned things I could not have learned if all my dreams had come true. I will read books differently now, more aware of the passion behind the work.

The sense of calling remains strong. The compulsion to put words on paper, to touch lives through language, to share some small part of the image of God within me—who spoke the universe into being—continues to be a driving force in my life. That compulsion is not dependent on lineups at book signings. It is not a reflection of the numbers sold, or the state of my bank account.

Little glimmers reach me, of lives touched through words I have put on paper. A sense of wonder grows that God could do such a thing, even through me, and I am content.

Brian Austin is the author of the book Laughter & Tears: A Celebration in Verse. Austin and his wife live in Durham, Ontario. They have three adult children, two grandchildren and eagerly anticipate a reunion with a grandson they have never had the opportunity to hold. The book is dedicated to the memory of Dylan Michael Edgcumbe, who lived March 3-8, 2003. Austin is also the author of about 60 articles and poems in a variety of publications.