Emerging from Grand Central Station on my way to a business appointment I realized I was a little early, so I decided to get my shoes shined.  A burly, jovial man gestured for me to climb into his thronelike chair, and as I placed my feet on the foot rests he reached into a cardboard carton and handed me a paperback book.  I examined it.  It was a Mira sampler carrying the opening chapters of the first three novels in a series called The Reincarnationist by M. J. Rose.”Where did you get this?”

“Some people were handing them out here on 42nd Street,” he explained.  “So I said to them, ‘Why don’t you give me a bunch and I’ll give them to my customers.  That will be good for your business and mine at the same time.’”

Like bars and airplanes, shoe shine stands are places where you can exchange life stories with strangers in the space of minutes. My man’s name was Kevin Tucker but his street name is -  well – “Street.” He’s been shining shoes for fifteen years. A lot of his Grand Central colleagues are gone – business down because too many people are wearing sneakers.

After browsing the first few pages of the sampler I looked up and said “I know M. J. Rose.” I explained that she was a writer I had met on a number of occasions and one of the first authors to publish an original novel in e-book format.  As he rubbed cordovan wax polish into my oxfords we talked about books.  A lot of his customers read Kindles while he works on their shoes.

I asked him what the reaction has been to the samplers he handed out. He said some customers took extra copies to hand out at their offices. Some of them came back for more.

He buffed my shoes to a high gloss. It had been a while since I’d had my shoes shined and the price was higher than I remembered but I gave Kevin a generous tip because he was doing something to promote books.  He thanked me and recited his motto: “Let me put a glow on your toe before you go.”  I said “I’ll go you one better: ‘Put a twinkle in your toes with Kevin Tucker and M. J. Rose.’” I took a picture of him with the tool of his trade in one hand and the tool of M. J’s in the other.

But there’s a kicker.  Out of curiosity I googled “Kevin Tucker Shoe Shine” when I returned to my office. And this is what I found:

Monday, April 27, 2009
The best shoe shine ever
By TigerHawk at 4/27/2009 12:42:00 PM

“I admire a person who can do even a mundane job with skill, humor, and aplomb. Well, I just got the best shoe shine I have ever had from Kevin Tucker, who works a stand just outside Grand Central Station on 42nd Street. Now, Kevin claims he gives the best shine in New York and will devote the entire shine to an amusing monologue about the secrets of a great shine, the importance of a great shine to attracting women and success in business, and the influence of the Navy on his shoe-shining skills. He says that he views every shine for a new customer as “an audition” for all their business. Sadly, I do not pass by Grand Central too often, but Mr. Tucker did get a free TigerHawk endorsement out of it. If you go that way, take the time — ‘perfection cannot be rushed’ — and get yourself a great shine.”

So this one’s for you, Street. And by the way, thank you. My business meeting was a success.  With that dazzling glow on my toe, how could it not be?

Richard Curtis

If authors are being asked to do the publishers’ job of marketing and publicizing their own books, shouldn’t the publishers pay them for it, as they would pay a staff member or outside publicist?

M. J. Rose thinks so. In fact, she’s beating the drum to promote the idea. “In almost all cases, publishers are making it clear that they expect authors to supplement their marketing/PR effort in various ways and, in some cases, even soliciting the author’s help with both time and yes, money. As a result, today the author’s marketing/PR effort is often equal to or even greater than what the house is doing.”

Authors are subsidizing marketing and PR and but that’s not enough, says Rose, a well known and savvy publicist for authors (as well as for herself). She wants to change the way publishers compensate authors. Read about it in Publishers Must Change the Way Authors Get Paid

RC