Book Signings Two and Three Recap

Still no danger of bleeding fingers but it went quite well this weekend. Bennington Gate is a wonderful store. And they were so nice to me, They had a nice spread on my signing table with flowers on it, and a huge comfy chair and there was great music to listen to. However, there is not much traffic there and since someone had to come inside the store to even see I was there, I did not see many people. A beautiful evening outside did not help, I'm sure. My editor dropped by and it was the first time I had seen her since the book came out so we were all excited and happy over it all. Also, Dana came by with her mom to say hello. We talked about the newspaper biz in the province (she works at The Scope) and both drooled over Moleskines. Moleskines, people! Bennington Gate sells Moleskines. If you don't know what the hoopla is about then you are not obsessed with office supplies, pens or paper products but trust me, this new info about the Moleskine being available in town has changed my Christmas list. Thanks Dana.

After the signing on Friday I met up with a couple of friends for a drink and free nachos from the nacho bar at Arriba's and then we did something no writer who has had a slow signing should do. We went to the book launch of Wayne Johnston's The Custodian of Paradise. There was a horde of people there and the line-up to get his autograph afterwards went back a long ways through the store. My friends and I had coffee and waited for what must have been at least 20 minutes but when we checked, the line-up was still in the same place. I think people had been doing what we were doing--waitng for the line to thin down a bit then try to get an autograph, but people must have kept reinforcing the line. We just gave up after a while. Hope Wayne's fingers didn't bleed.

Signing number three at Coles in the Avalon Mall was also a lovely spread with lots of books on the table and I was in a good area so I sold more books at that one. But, I don't think people get it. Many people seemed to think I worked for the store and was just flogging this book. They would ask me where to find other books. And a number of people would stand there looking at the book, then ask about it and then say, "oh, did you write this book?". "Yes," I explained, "I am signing copies". "Oh," then put down the book in hurry and run away. Several bookstore employees have told me that people won't ask the writer to sign the book but will come back later and get the ones with the "signed by author" sticker on them. Weird (or maybe just people trying to make me feel better about a slow book signing).

At the Avalon Mall, I did get a lovely treat. My friend from high school, Chris, came by. He found out about my book in the Downhome Magazine and looked me up on the web. It was the first time I had seen him since early university days when our class still tried to keep in touch. More years have gone by since then than I care to admit but Chris hasn't changed a bit. He is still the same sweet, kind, brilliant guy I remember. He even brought me a pen since he read that I am obsessed with them. And if that wasn't enough, he emailed me the next day to tell me he had been up until two in the morning, reading my book and how much he had enjoyed it, laughing out loud and being moved by it at times. Such great feedback. Now I intend to get a little mini-reunion of our classmates from high school together, those of us who live on the Avalon, anyway. Just have to track them all down.

The rest of the weekend was very busy with some freelance work I've been doing. Back at that again now soon so I had to take this chance to update the blog now. Three more signings next weekend and that is it for a little while until late October. All, in all, as Martha Stewart says, it's a good thing.