I Survived a Book Signing

So I made it through the local author open house I went to last night! My first author appearance.

They had ten different tables of authors displaying their books.  I was the only romance author there, the only one with an iPad slideshow, with free pencils, and free suckers, and a giveaway drawing...oh, and the only one with a table cloth on my table (my husband said that was a nice touch--a thank you very much!). So when anyone came by my table, they were like, "Well, you've done this before."  But, nope, I hadn't. I just researched what I should do.

I was definitely the youngest of the group, so I got one, "You're not old enough to have written this many books."  I also had the most amount of books at my table.  Everyone else brought one or two of their stories.  So I heard a lot of "Wow, you're prolific," and "Did you write all these?" (I tried to make one sarcastic joke of, "Nope, I stole a couple of them," but that didn't go over so well, so I didn't give that  answer again!)

My mom (who'd just made it home from Montana) and a couple of my sisters showed up. They went around to all the tables, and I could hear Mom saying, "That one over there is my daughter." Yep, nothing beats good PR like a proud mama!

Then another lady, who worked with one of my sister's came to buy two of my books that she hadn't read yet. I was so nervous signing her books that my signature was atrocious. And since her maiden name is my married name, I wrote a really corny line like "it's an honor to share a name with you." I know...what was I thinking?

Anyway, one of the other authors bought one of my books, and yeah, that was pretty much the extent of the book-selling portion of my evening.

There were probably only a handful of people that didn't have a table set up who came to the event, but all the authors milled around to all the different tables all evening, which made the place look busy and active.

It was nice to meet other authors who live in my area. I only knew one of them before last night, and she was my creative writing professor in college (she's also my boss's wife). I was glad our tables were set up next to each other so we could talk.

Since I had worked at that library a few years ago, it was really nice to see the librarians again.  It reminded me how much I loved working with them, and it made me miss them. They took a copy of each of my books for the library circulation.

All in all, it was a good learning experience and showed me that I CAN survive a book signing...and where I need improvement. I saw how easily other authors talked about their books, so I know that's what I need to work on the most. Thankfully, no one asked me what any of my stories were about, because I knew I'd flub that up. They just picked the books up and read the back blurb to find out for themselves.

Ann Dee, one of the librarians, went around taking pictures.  So, she'll probably have those uploaded later today on their Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/#!/PPLonline  I'll be the one wearing my "Be Careful or you'll end up in my novel" t-shirt if you want to hope over and take a look!

So that was my book signing experience in a nut shell! Now I think I'll go back to the part of being an author I like most: just writing a story.