First, I have to say thank you to all of the wonderful bloggers who have featured or reviewed Princess of Las Pulgas. The links are there in my sidebar. I’ll be adding more it seems because there are a lot of very busy book bloggers. Bless them!

I’ve been busy since this book released and it’s been great to talk to readers and meet booksellers. This week I met a great Children’s Event Coordinator, Colleen Ross at Books Inc.  Here we at the signing. 

What I’ve found is that as a new author I may have a few people at my signings, but connecting with the booksellers is not only great because they love books, but, if they like your book, they are the people who can help you with your promotion. I’ve learned a few other things about appearances and I’m sure I’ll be learning more, but I thought I’d share a few pointers I’ve picked up along the way.

*Go to your presentation (reading, book signing, workshop, discussion) on time and prepared.

*You don’t have to do a song and dance for your audience, but think of ways to make your talk or exchange with the people interesting. Include them by having some questions of your own. “How many of you write?” “Does anyone here keep a journal?” 

*If other authors attend to support you, introduce them. They’ll appreciate it and the readers will enjoy meeting other authors.

*Even if you have one person in attendance do your best at presenting your book and yourself. In one case I heard about, the one person who showed up at a friend’s signing turned out to be a school superintendent who recommended the author’s book in his district.

*Invite your friends, of course, and start a mailing list for signings, so you can evite or direct email readers to future events.

*If you can include other authors in your signing, do. Having two or three presentations often creates more interest and gathers more people. 

*When possible, offer to do a short workshop as part of your signing. 

*Above all enjoy the time you spend with your readers. I think I was enjoying something here. Probably something someone said that made me laugh. 

Here are some friends after the signing. We turned this event into a great party and reunion. That made the evening very special.

None of what I’ve written is new, but sometimes it helps to see a list of suggestions from someone who’s learning on the job. I’m sure I’ll learn more as I go along and when I do, I’ll share.

I just had my second book published. My second book! Good grief, as Charlie B. would say. How great is that? Pretty great, I’d answer. It’s something that I never thought I’d do, yet it happened. The first time it was so exciting, kind of like a first kiss. What could be more perfect? The second time is still darned good. I don’t think I’ll ever take for granted that I’m published-that I have an ISBN recorded in this world of books. I am grateful. I am hooked. I want more and I plan to get more.

One thing you get to do when you write books is meet other people who write them too. Here’s a bit of ALA in San Diego where I signed with another writer, Selene Castrovilla. 

Kami Garcia, Cindy Pon, Carrie Ryan, Cheri Williams dropped by our booth to say hello, so that made the experience even more exciting. I love that I know writers. They are special.

Just when I thought I’d really stopped going on about Book Signings, I hear a story that has a great lesson in it for all of us and have to share it. This came from an avid reader who goes to meet a lot of authors and loves to buy signed copies of their books.

Here’s what happened to her last week. She’d heard about a new cookbook, with the theme of home cooked food and family. The ad announcing the book signing read, “Author will be at XXX from 2-4 pm.” My friend arrived at 3 and the author had already left. When she asked the bookseller what had happened, the woman said, “Nobody was here, so the author didn’t want to stay any longer.”

BIG MISTAKE!!!

And here’s why. My friend belongs to Slow Foods, and her chapter was interested in promoting this author’s new book by featuring some of the recipes at their functions and on their web-page. Oops!

Moral: Stick around for the time you promised even if nobody’s there to buy your book.

 When I first started appearing at book signings I expected a mixed audience: young adults, some middle graders who read YA, and older people like parents and interested writers. I thought I get questions about how I found my publisher or what “surprises” I’d experienced during my journey to publication. And I did.

I also had questions about who my favorite author was or what my favorite book was, and those I was prepared to answer. However, I wasn’t expecting some of the questions that people asked.  Here are few examples of questions you might have to field.

Q: Where is Sweet River? (Sweet River is the fictional town in my novel.)
Bad Ans:     In my head.
Better Ans: When I imagined Sweet River, I saw a small Sierra Nevada town similar to Auburn, CA.

Q: What part of your story is autobiographical?
Bad Ans:  Are you kidding?
Better Ans: The only autobiographical part is a small portion of a scene where one of my characters says her grandmother used to bake her a cake for her birthday. That’s true. Mine did.

Q: How did they get the horses back?
Bad Ans: Uh. Well, Er. Let’s see.
Better Ans: In my mind they stopped the trailer at the rest stop and rescued them. (None of this is in the book.)

Q: Do you know Shawna?
Bad Ans: Of course. I created her.
Better Ans: I don’t know her really, but I know her as a character I wrote. In fact, I kind of like her. She’s still in my mind a lot.

Q: What happened to Kenny?
Bad Ans: How should I know?
Better Ans: In my mind he continues to live at the horse ranch and be Kay’s support.

Q: Does the Sunday Boy marry Shawna?
Bad Ans: I didn’t think that far ahead.
Better Ans: It’s quite possible they will have a continued relationship, but since she’s only sixteen I can’t imagine marriage yet.

What you see is that readers sometimes enter into a story so much that the characters and where they live become real to them. Interestingly enough these questions didn’t come from younger readers, but from older adults.  Can you think of possible questions that readers might ask about your books-ones that might reflect this kind of involvement? You might think about them now, so you won’t come up with some of the Bad Answers I did at first.

. . . then there’s the STAR TREATMENT book signing, the kind of book signing authors dream about.

I didn’t plan to do such a long series of posts on book signings, but your questions have been so interesting that I thought I’d press on with yet another one. This is in response to a question about the size of the venue.

Space at small Indies isn’t a problem at all. Here is the venue for Montclaire’s A Great Good Place for Books. You can see it’s “cozy,” but the turn out was great for two reasons: people from different ages came and during the Q & A there were a lot of questions.

At larger venues like Books Inc. in San Francisco space was definitely not an issue and the turn out was about 40 people: teens, bloggers, and adults. Jen Laughran did a lot of publicity and offered refreshments. The theme, Debutantes, included tiaras for fun.

Here’s another event with five of us (L to R. Sarah Quigley, me, Malinda Lo, Cheryl Herbsman, Jon Yang) at Corte Madera’s Kidlitsalon hosted us. This audience was mostly people who wanted to publish either their illustrations or their novels. Some bloggers came as well.

So you can see that the venues are as varied as we are with our books, and the size of the venue isn’t something to be concerned about. Getting the word out is.

I don’t do book signings where I sit at a table in a bookstore. Even if I did and followed the experienced writers’ guidelines, like come with balloons and candy, walk around cornering customers and thrusting your book into their hands, that kind of event would be pure hell for me.

I love to do book signings that involve panel presentations in front of a group of readers/writers. It’s fun to talk about my journey to publication, my book, why I wrote it, and some of my little “surprises” after publication.

What I’ve found is that by doing a panel with two or three other YA authors, we have a varied audience, a surprisingly good turnout, lots of questions, and a chance to network with bloggers as well as book sellers.

Here’s how we structure our cooperative events:

1) Each writer talks about 15 minutes. This talk includes what I’ve said in the first graph and usually a short reading from his or her book.

2) Sometimes we talk about our favorite characters and why they are so appealing, reading excerpts to give the audience an example of that character. We change this topic depending on what the book seller wants. Some other options: effective dialog, building tension in a scene, description to set the mood.

3) The wrap up is Q & A that usually lasts another 10 to 15 minutes.

4) The bookseller usually offers some kind of snack and beverage, so even after the Q & A and the signing, people stay and there’s an opportunity to talk.

Does anyone agree/disagree with me on the “table in the corner” event? Have you had good experiences doing that kind of signing? How about readers? Do you go over to the authors in the store and talk to them? Just curious.

I can’t believe that most of November and December is going to be all about book signings. I’m excited and somewhat terrified at the work ahead. I went though tons of notes about what to do and what not to do when making appearances, and here’s what I’ve gleaned as the key points for a successful book signing experience. I’m calling this Part I.

First, it’s a lot about pre-planning.

1) Contact the person in charge where the signing will take place at least 10 weeks in advance.

2) See what marketing you can do that will enhance the booksellers efforts. Do this about 6 weeks in advance.

3)About 5 weeks ahead be sure there aren’t any problems with getting your book to the store, library or wherever.

4) Send out press releases or media kits about 4 weeks before the signing. Coordinate this with the bookseller.

5) About 1 week ahead check with the seller again re: the details. e.g. do you have enough books?

6) The week of the event, try to have some media coverage: radio spot, newspaper piece with a different twist on who you are or what your book is about.

Part II coming soon.