Shilling my Substack in person on a market stall (Part 1: Why Did I Agree to This Again?)

Let me explain. This Sunday, May 26th 2024, in Kyoto, Japan, I am going to be standing in public trying to convince passers-by to subscribe to The Kyote (“explaining the week in Japan”), my Substack of less than three months vintage.

These circumstances have not come about via a series of well thought-out decisions.

What happened is this: a bar-owner pal of mine hosts various events around Kyoto, my home of two decades. This time it’s a flea market-style operation, except designed for the cognoscenti, since the bar-owner is a ponytailed French musician who dresses exclusively in black.

There’s been some trouble selling out the pitches, he explained to me and my friend, an artistic genius I’ll call H, as he passed our drinks over the bar a couple of weeks ago.

“Mebbe you an’ H could tak a stall togethair?”

H studied landscape design at Harvard, is architecting a wellness resort in Bali, hosts a tea club and as an afterthought produces wonderful ceramics. A true artist, he has an eye, whether that eye is trained on a pair of shoes, an Olympic stadium or mustache trends in 1960s Azerbaijan.

If there’s a market stall, H will think of some use for it, and it will look wonderful.

The bar-owner’s gaze swerved to me, then – he knowing I’ve been talking for a year or three about finally getting rid of my vinyl collection.

“You could sell your records,” he said, unaccented, because in reality he doesn’t sound that French.

Said I: “Ok, let’s do it.” Then, spot decision number two: “But not records. I’m gonna sell my newsletter.”

To which my bar-owner pal said, “whaht newslettair?”

No, I am not good at selling. Yes, I assume this will be a problem at the event.

*

I have a new respect for market stall traders

By which I mean: the logistics are really annoying – and as I write this we’re still 48 hours out from enduring the actual event.

First, the money.

The money gets you your pitch, a 2m x 2m space, and nothing else.

Do you wish to rent a tent? If it rains, you’re dead in the water without one.

The tent costs more than the pitch does. These tent-rent f*ckers are making a killing. They’re making back 80% of the purchase price of a tent in one afternoon. 

What I’m doing, of course, is underestimating H. 

Of course H has a tent perfect for sheltering a market stall.

Of course H has a foldable table he can arrange his ceramics on.

So we’re on! Here’s what we’ve had to prepare:

• Lots of heavy water bottles (to anchor the tent to the ground in case of high winds)

• Wire/ropes (to secure the water bottles to the tent legs)

• The tent itself

• H’s table (to display his wares)

• A tablet computer (to show The Kyote to potential subscribers)

• Electric chargers (multiple)

• Signage (multiple)

• Sunblock (due to weather forecast)

• The Kyote business cards (this is Japan)

But then I realize I need something different for my half of the stall.

I’m getting people to sign up to a Substack. I don’t want to sit behind H’s low table, a barrier between me and potential subscribers – I need something that aids casual chit-chat.

I need a bar table to stand at.

*

The French bar owner does not have a bar table. He has a bar, and inside that bar is a bar – but chainsawing it out of his place for one afternoon seems excessive.

And, it turns out, none of my other bartender/brand ambassador/ne’er-do-well friends have a line on a bar table either – except one, who sends me a link to a company which will rent me one for the same price the tent would’ve been. No way…but still, now I’ve thought of it, the bar table seems essential…

Here’s the thing: the next time I’m leaving my house, as I’m passing the restaurant next door, as I have done thousands of times previously, there’s a slob standing there having a cigarette…leaning on a bar table in the alley between our buildings!

Fate!

Quick as a flash I uumed and ahhed for 48 hours over whether I should try borrowing it from the restaurant — before deciding screw it, and popping in to proposition the manager, giving a spiel about the event, mentioning vaguely I could possibly afford some small unspecified fee but determined not to pay as much as the rental company asked.

And the asshole in charge only said I could have it for free all day! 

Hallelujah! I am a savant of persuasion, and sales my calling!

All I have to do, this Sunday, May 26th, is get the table to the venue and back – and the venue is only a few hundred meters away!

So, wreathed in smiles, under the eyes of the restaurant manager, I experimentally picked up the table to see how heavy it was.

Strike that – I tried to pick it up.

The bastard is more than heavy – the bastard is abnormal.

The bastard could appear as a challenge prop in a World’s Most Steroided Human competition.

But suddenly – fate intervening – I get a flurry of messages from a different friend. A close friend. How close? Well, he’s basically the first person I mentioned The Kyote to. Certainly my first subscriber. Doesn’t necessarily read every edition, but I repeat: a close friend.

And he was asking me to stand guarantor for his permanent residence visa in Japan.

This is an enormous deal. Life-changing. An opportunity to become a true immigrant, rather than a foreign worker.

You could check out

Of course I would sponsor him! – He’s a great friend of mine…

…and did I mention the bar table is heavy? Certainly too much for one person to manage…

It wasn’t exactly an equal quid pro quo – my request for 15 minutes of his time to lug a table a couple hundred yards is hardly comparable to standing up on his behalf for the life-changing visa.

So I said yes to his permanent residence, and asked for a yes to my event-table.

I make no apologies for quoting his response verbatim:

Your [sic] carrying a bar table down the road?? And assumedly [sic] back? On a Sunday??

Can’t you get a folding table from somewhere? That sounds like a nightmare lol

I explained why it was of the absolute essence to have that bar table – to sell The Kyote (you know, old friend, that newsletter I’m very invested in seeing succeed?)

For 24 hours he didn’t reply – and when he did, it was to ask when I was free to sign his visa docs.

I still have no idea how I’m going to get the bastard table to the event…

*

That was Shilling my Substack in Person On a Market Stall (Part 1: Why Did I Agree to This Again?)

Stay tuned for the post-event conclusion to the series, to be titled Shilling My Substack in Person On a Market Stall (Part 2: Fiasco), alternative: (Part 2: Born to Triumph).

Wish me luck…