What to Expect from a Benny Lewis Book Signing
Saturday for the first time in my life I decided to go to a book signing.
I've never been to book signing before, so I had no idea what to expect. You see these things in movies. Some author sits at a table with stacks of books on both sides of the author. A long line of fans leads up to the table. One reader leaves the table; another approaches. "I really like your series about sparkly vampires," the reader beams. "That's so sweet," the author replies. "What's your name?" Then the author opens a book, and says aloud as she writes "To Sarah, my biggest fan." The book is closed and handed to its new owner. The author says "Next." The line moves on.
Okay, so that's my expectation, thanks to Hollywood. So I wondered Saturday morning if driving more than 90 minutes to San Francisco to attend a Benny Lewis book signing would be worth it.
Glad I went.
The reason why is almost at the end, so keep reading.
What to really expect from a Benny Lewis book signing event:
So, Benny Lewis, if you haven't heard of him, is one of the internet's most famous polyglots. He has probably the internet's most popular blog on learning languages at fluentin3months.com. I learned Esperanto because of his email newsletter.
Expect more than just Benny sitting at a table signing books. The book signing started at 12:30. My wife and I actually arrived in at the Ferry Building in San Francisco an hour early. We wandered around the shops, bought some really good bread, and arrived at the book store at 12:28. I thought (because of my Hollywood-style expectations) we'd see Benny setting up a table and a line forming of people lucky enough to talk to him for 90 seconds.
No. Benny wants to talk to us for an hour.
Which is a good thing. I don't know if this is typical of book signings. This is my first one, afterall. The book store had several chairs set up and a podium for Benny to speak from. We got there as the last chairs were filling up, so I had to stand for a good portion of the presentation.
I talked to Benny's girlfriend, Lauren, after the presentation. This was his third stop on his U.S./Canada tour, and Lauren says there was standing room only at the previous two presentations too. Get there earlier than I did.
Expect Benny to tell you his story. Okay, so this is the only part of the presentation I wasn't too excited about. If you've spent a fair amount of time on Benny's web site, or if you've watched his Ted Talk, you've heard the stories about living in Spain and not speaking Spanish, about doing horribly in school when it came to language learning, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, he tells those stories again.
And really, that's okay. Because probably not everyone in the audience knows those stories. My wife was with me and she didn't know those stories. And that part of the presentation didn't last too long.
Expect Benny to give you an outline of the book. Okay, boring stuff is over with. Benny starts talking about the book and what's in it, with a bried synopsis of the chapters in the book. I enjoyed this part. He tells us some good language learning tips, shares some experiences. Good stuff.
Expect a question and answer portion of the presentation. This was my favorite part of the presentation. For about half an hour Benny answered people's questions.
So this part of the presentation is going to be different at every book signing, depending on what people ask. My favorite question had to deal with compartmentalizing multiple languages in my head. This was useful for me because I find when I'm speaking Spanish, my brain will often insert Italian words into my mouth. This happened too when I was practicing my Esperanto presentation, except I was using Italian grammar constructs when using possessive pronouns.
Expect Benny to ask you to practice your language. At the end of the presentation Benny asked people to stand up, and move to a different area depending on what language you are learning. As you can imagine, a few people took advantage of this. A few people didn't want to go out of their comfort zones.
Us Lao learners are a rare breed, I'm finding out. I didn't find anyone there who is learning Lao. But I did have a twenty minute conversation with someone named Ken who had been learning Italian for the past 4 months. That was fun. We talked about an Italian movie he really likes (La Granda Bellezza) and what he's doing to learn Italian.
Expect the book store to not have enough copies of Benny's book. I was lucky. I got the last book the store had. The people in line behind me, not so lucky. If you want a signed copy, either buy one ahead of time to bring with you, or get to the book store at least 15 minutes before the book signing and buy your copy before the presentation.
Expect a few minutes to talk to Benny and get your book signed. Crazy, right? You can get your book signed at a book signing event. My Hollywood expectations came through at the end.
Benny took time to talk to people who had bought his book and people who didn't. There was a line of people, and luckily I didn't see anyone try to monopolize his time. As we drove home one of the things my wife said was "Benny and Lauren were really nice people." She's right.
Expect to be motivated. Okay, this is the real reason to go. Benny is good at learning languages. He's also good at motivating you and helping you believe you can do it.
The very next day I put some of his advice into practice. (Well, sorta.) Benny suggested offering to buy a native speaker lunch and ask them to only speak to you in the language you are learning. Don't worry about not understanding them. Use context clues to figure out what they are talking about.
So, one of the reasons I'm learning Lao right now is there is a small group of Lao people who attend my church. While the rest of us are in English Sunday School, they are attending a small Sunday School class in Lao. So this last Sunday, I skipped the English school class and attended the Lao class.
I understood almost nothing.
But I payed attention. I picked up from contextual clues some of what they were talking about. One of the teachers asked me afterward if I picked up any new words in Lao. I said I heard the phrase "khoa phi bai boen" several times. (I just had to look up how to spell that; I'm not a Lao genius, yet.) I asked if that meant Bible. I was right. I picked up from contextual clues and learned one new thing in Lao.
Awesome.
Maybe next time I'll pick up some more.
Lao is a frustrating language for me. I've learned a handful of European languages that use the same alphabet that I'm used to, with lots and lots of cognates. Spanish was really easy for me because I already knew Italian. But I was getting discouraged with Lao.
So if for no other reason, motivation is the reason to go to a Benny Lewis book signing event.
Is the book worth it? I can't say for sure yet because I haven't read it yet. The reviews on Amazon are really positive. I've had some time to look through the book a few times, but I haven't sat down to read it yet. I'm going camping this weekend, away from my lap-top, so I'll have some time to start reading.
One reviewer on Amazon says the book is full of tips you could get for free from Benny's site. The reviewer may be right. However, the book has all these tips organized in a very accessible format. You'd have to sift through Benny's rather large site to find this info. The book is a much more convenient format.
Benny is going to hit several more cities this year. You can check out his schedule here. If he's going to be in a city near you this summer, it's worth the trip.
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