A Book Signing that came close to being Gone With the Wind almost left me In a Fix

I survived my first book signing event!

Um, yes, I know I should have posted this last week. But this month has been eating my head. Busy, busy, busy! Book launch, signing, birthdays (many, many family birthdays!), anniversaries, a fund-raising ball...whoo-eee! Lots of excitement for a tends-to-be-solitary writer.

So I took a little blogging break just to, yannoh, breathe.

Anyway, I know I promised you posts on polishing turds and advice about book reviews from an ass--and I'm gonna get to those soon*, I promise!--but first I thought I'd subject you to a few signing photos.

Because it's my blog, and I'll bore if I want to, bore if I want to...you would bore too if it happened to yooouu... (You have to imagine that set to music. Or maybe not... Listen, let's just forget I ever sang said it, okay?)

Barnes & Noble set up a table for me:

Tor had sent the foam-board poster ahead of time, which I thought was very nice of them. And I got to keep it. Yay!

They also sent what I considered an optimistic number of books (these, plus the ones in the window display), but apparently we sold most of them, so that was good:

If you're wondering what that thing on the end of the table is, it's a model of a catapult. Or, as my daughter called it, the "candy-pult." There's a connection to the book (how's that for a teaser?), and flinging Hershey's Kisses into the audience after each question encouraged, um, intellectual discourse on the nature of genre fiction. *cough*

Here's a close-up of it:

A special guest came to the signing with me:

(That's Jen the Amazing, one of my Twitter buds. She couldn't be there in person, so I made Popsicle JenFace. That's her "buy Linda's book" expression.)

I chit-chatted for a while...

(There were some more rows of chairs behind these, and people standing behind them, too. Of course the people standing back there may have just been trying to get to the romance shelves I was blocking. Or, yannoh, hoping to catch a stray piece of chocolate. Still, it was nice to see them there. Not too bad a turn out for a totally unknown newbie author.)

After I yakked for a while, I read a short passage:

(Note the audience's rapt attention to the words "half-naked man.")

And then people actually asked me to sign books!

(I know! It amazed me too. I'm still kind of befuddled by the whole idea of it.)


During the whole event the weather kept getting worse and worse. The store manager announced there was a tornado warning, and told everyone to get away from the windows. Fortunately, the store was spared any major damage.

(Though I did miss out on a good headline. Just think of it: "Local Author Takes Area By Storm." Alas. Maybe next time.)

After the signing, TG took me and our kiddos out to my favorite restaurant, where I indulged in this ...

... and collapsed.

I guess the store manager was happy with how it all went, because she invited me back for another signing before the holidays. I'm thinking of hiring a some actors to dress up as Vikings for that one. ;)


*Always a relative term with me.