David Sedaris’ book signing Tuesday at Left Bank Books drew about 500 people, according to the store.

He signed books until after midnight and the store sold more than 450 copies of “When You Are Engulfed in Flames.”

Left Bank Books has been bringing great authors to St. Louis for years. What many folks may not realize is that it often asks publishers for certain authors to come here. Of course this is a money-making venture: the publisher and author make money and the store makes money.

But it’s nice that readers can meet or hear authors such as Anne Lamott, etc.

Left Bank is a small venue, but over the past decade it has partnered with other sites - schools, libraries, etc. - to host these authors. For Sedaris, only about 150 people fit into the store; the rest were outside. But everyone who wanted to say hello to him after the talk got to. This kind of turnout has become more and more common - people really want to meet popular authors of good books. Sedaris’ book hit the best-seller list immediately and then went No. 1 on amazon.com for a while.

Independent booksellers in general have more ability to attract authors: many authors prefer to support independents.

For chain stores, often these author events are arranged by a corporate headquarters out of town.

So it’s great that St. Louis still has a strong independent bookstore to bring some of these authors here. The city likely would not have quite the variety of authors coming to town if it weren’t for Left Bank.