Friday, July 16, 2010

MY LATEST BOOK SIGNING ADVENTURE


I love book signings. My signing was for my debut middle-grade novel, EXPLORER X-ALPHA. I had a signing at Barnes and Nobles in Fairfax, VA. Everything was well planned. The flyers were sent ahead of my event and I lucked out to be invited there during a school book festival day –which meant tons of young people were expected to flood the store.

WHEN MURPHY’S LAW IS IN THE HOUSE

On my way to my signing – my car died. Yep, I was on a busy highway and my baby started losing speed. Eek! This one embarrassing moment, I called my husband and yelled into my cellphone earpiece, “I’m gonna die!” Cars whizzed by and honked while I was stopped in the middle of a busy highway.

First, he told me to calm down. Then he asked me if I could make it. I restarted the car and it actually started again. However, it wouldn’t get past 40 miles per hour. So the honking cars still zoomed around me, but thankfully I made it to the store. Once there I wondered how I was going to get home. The car couldn’t be driven on the highway and I didn’t want to just hang out at the store and watch my car being towed. So, I did what anyone would do – I called my dad. Followed him home and called a tow truck.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Even though my car was sitting outside of the bookstore, taunting me, I still enjoyed my signing. I sold eight books in two hours and talked to tons of people. Yeah, I got those that looked at me from under their eyelashes while they rushed by. Some just waved hello or even chatted with me though they didn’t read YA or MG novels. Overall after just two hours, I’d signed and sold over half of the books ordered. The most rewarding part of my day was looking up at the wonderful young people and their parents who stood anxiously by while I signed a personal message in their books.

With my adventures, I have to admit, meeting people and being among books is one of the most rewarding experiences of all. Quite a different vision of my future as a writer when I naively sat down to write my first novel.



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4 comments:

cleemckenzie said...

Whew! One close call. Thank goodness you were able to turn that car over and drive, even if only at 40mph. Nothing like a little added stress, right? Hope you found out the cause and glad you made the signing.

Loren said...

Found you from the Book Hop and love your blog! The post from your son is great on COD! Look forward to knowing you and hope you can come by and say hi and follow me if you'd like!

Have a blessed weekend and happy reading

LM Preston said...

Thanks for hopping in you all :-D Having adventures keeps life interesting and gives me great material to write about :-D

Susan Kaye Quinn said...

Yikes! I'm glad it worked out in the end. It looks like signings are old hat for you (baring minor adventures!). How many have you done? :)