J.A. Jance with Bill Farley of the Seattle Mystery Bookstore, December 21, 2013.

I’ve just spent eight hours of my life signing tip-in sheets for Dance of the Bones.  What that means is, the publisher sent 3200 title pages to autograph. It took eight hours total—six yesterday and two today. I wore rubber gloves to make it possible to shuffle the pages and to keep from a: wrecking my manicure and b: getting a blister on my signing finger.

You may be wondering what tip-in sheets are. They are essentially duplicate title pages that are shipped to authors, signed, returned to the publisher, and then “tipped into” some of the first printing copies of a hardback title. In this case, the pre-signed copies of Dance of the Bones will be available from Books-a-Million and Barnes and Noble. Don’t ask me how this happened. It’s something that was negotiated far up the book publishing food chain.

But I dutifully signed them all.  It’s sort of mindless task, and I did a lot of wool gathering during those eight hours. If you end up purchasing one of these, please do not write to complain about my penmanship. Try signing your name 3200 times in eight hours flat and see how well your penmanship holds up.

And speaking of penmanship, Mrs. Gilbert, my third grade teacher at Greenway School in Bisbee, always gave me Cs in penmanship because, she insisted, my letters leaned the wrong way. Guess what? All these years later, my letters STILL lean the wrong way.

When Bill Schilb and I first met, he looked at my signature and said, “That’s impossible.” A couple of times during the tip-in signing process, I momentarily found myself thinking the same thing and had to concentrate on how the letters actually came together. But the tip-ins are done now and on their way to New York. Whew!

And now onto the real subject of this blog.

One summer’s morning in 1990, as I drank my morning coffee and read my daily (then paper) copy of the Seattle P.I., I ran across an article about a guy named Bill Farley who had come to town for the express purpose of opening a mystery book store–the Seattle Mystery Bookshop.  Since I write murder mysteries, I read the article all the way through to the end.  Bill had previously owned a mystery bookstore in Pennsylvania, but after a chance suggestion from Aaron Elkins about Seattle needing its own mystery bookstore, Bill packed up and headed West.

The next time I was downtown Seattle, I made it a point to drop by the store’s location, tucked into a basement space at the corner of Second and Cherry.  The store wasn’t officially open yet, but the door was unlocked, so I walked inside to introduce myself.  Bill and his wife, B. Jo. were busily unpacking and shelving books.  My plan was to stay long enough to say hello and then hit the road.  Before I had a chance to leave, however, a potential customer took advantage of that same unlocked door and stepped inside, too.  And what do you suppose that customer had to say?  “Do you have any books by J.A. Jance?”  Those words were music to my ears.

As it happens, they did have some of my books.  The customer selected the one he wanted and was ready to pay for it when a problem arose.  The store wasn’t officially open.  The cash register was empty.  They didn’t have any change.  At the time, I was a mother with kids still in school.  I had spent years desperately digging through my purse in the early morning hours hoping to scrape together enough change to pay for school lunches.  Standing in the store, I scrounged through the depths of my purse once more and managed to come up with exact change for a twenty.  The first book Seattle Mystery Bookshop ever sold was one of MY books.  Not only was it signed by J.A. Jance, it was also SOLD by J.A. Jance.

In other words, J.A. Jance and Bill Farley go way back.

That first sale was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  For years Bill Farley sold my books both in the store and on the road. He’d collect what he liked to call a “Jance pack” and head out to wherever it was I happened to be speaking. The YWCA? Check. Rotary and Kiwanis club meetings? Check and check. Seattle Mystery’s “Jance pack” consisted of cardboard display dumps filled with copies of as many titles as would fit accompanied by a tattered cigar box loaded with some change. In later years a credit card printer, credit card slips, and a pen were added to the cigar box mix. I did talks while Bill and his helpers sold my books at any number of memorable places, including a very scary 12-Step Biker Bar in Ballard and at the Rainier Club in downtown Seattle where Bill set up his sales table inside the framework of an immense fireplace.

Lots of years, lots of books, and lots of good times have come and gone since then.  Literally thousands of authors have passed through the welcoming doors of the Seattle Mystery Bookshop under Bill’s auspices—new authors and well established ones alike.  All of us benefited from his presence in the store—from his kindness as well as his knowledgeability.

Eventually Bill sold Seattle Mystery to his book-selling sidekick, J. B. Dickey who continues to operate the store in the same location where it opened in 1990. Bill Farley’s wife, his beloved B. Jo, passed away several years ago. When Bill saw her name on the dedication page of one of my books, he shed a tear and so did I.

Bill Farley passed away this past week.  J. B. called me while we were at the airport in Rapid City to let me know.

The last time I saw Bill was in December two years ago when the Seattle Mystery Bookshop hosted a party in honor of Bill’s 83rd birthday. His birthday was December 19th, but the celebration was scheduled for December 21st which happens to be Bill Schilb’s and my wedding anniversary. I walked away from a whole houseful of company to drive from Bellevue to downtown Seattle to pass along my birthday good wishes to Bill Farley. I’m grateful now that I went and that I had a chance to let him know how much I appreciated him and how much he had influenced my career as a writer.

So hail and farewell, Bill Farley. You were a bookseller par excellence, and the whole Seattle literary community is grieving your loss.

You will be missed.