Welcome to Fort Boswell.

As we've been working with publishers on how to do the best event, the idea of ticketing has come up more often. Sometimes we are hosting folks at outside venues, such as Thomas Cahill at Marquette University's Varsity Theater on Thursday, November 7, and Amy Tan's appearance at Alverno College's Pitman Theatre on Monday, November 11.

There are a number of good reasons for ticketed events. Much as we enjoyed our free-for-all events with David Sedaris and Jim Gaffigan in the spring, there is definitely more of a feeling of calm with a ticketed event, such as we had with Junot Díaz on Monday, and the sales keep us competitive with other markets. There's an old saying that you wouldn't bring your own beer to a bar, but you'd be surprised that this sage wisdom doesn't always translate well.

Do I think the free event is going away? I don't think so,  While I do have friends at other bookstores who are ticketing most or sometimes all of their events, I really think it's up to the publisher, and while they have definitely come around on the idea of ticketing events, it really depends on a lot of factors.

We start with a conversation--do you want to maximize sales or attendance? And for most publishers and authors, the idea is to reach as many folks as possible. So for Eben Alexander, the author of Proof of Heaven, who is on tour for the deluxe edition of the hardcover (with DVD), we know that most of the attendees will already have the book. Both we and the publisher are hoping that his presentation will get folks to add on a gift edition, either for themselves or a holiday present. Alexander is coming to Boswell on Tuesday, November 19, 7 pm, by the way.

One problem we've wrestled with is when you ticket the event, how do you deal with store access. There's no question that whether admission is free or ticketed, once you have 300 people attending, the store is effectively closed. But when you ticket a smaller event, closing the store might not be the best option. We've just tried it both ways. For LeRoy Butler and Rob Reischel, talking about Packers Pride, we did close the store. But for Simon Winchester, in town to talk about The Men Who United the States, for an event co-sponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio, we created Fort Boswell.

Don't laugh, but this idea came to me in the middle of the night. We'd use our bookcases to create a discrete space with an entryway. Certain sections were inaccessible to non-attendees, most notably all the fiction and genre cases, history, and young adult. But the front half of the store, the rest of the kids' section and a select number of nonfiction sections (depending on which way the cases were facing) were quite shoppable. And remember, those sections are mostly inaccessible during the talk anyway.

We can probably make this work for about 100 people. More than that and I would close the store to the public for a ticketed event. But last night we were able to not only accommodate the crowd, but also have the event taped for Book TV. (My apologies for the photo quality. My "fort" shots are a bit blurry.)

I'm sure you're not surprised, but Simon Winchester charmed the crowd and we had a great time. It turns out that I have not one, but two groupies on staff in Mel and Jen. We probably had about the same attendance as his last visit (which was to Schwartz) but with much better sales. And yes, we have signed copies of The Men Who United the States.