MINNEAPOLIS — Getting readers to spend $25 on a book about athletes and concussions can be a hard sell. The topic isn’t uplifting, and the biggest audience for sports books — people who are fans — typically prefers to read about famous coaches and players.
Yet Ben Utecht, a tight end who retired from the N.F.L. in 2010 after absorbing too many hits to the head, still managed to draw a small group of people at a Barnes & Noble in Minneapolis recently, most of them eager to shake his hand and buy a copy of his book, “Counting the Days While My Mind Slips Away,” which is published by Howard Books, a division of Simon and Schuster.