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Monday, May 05, 2008

What is a book tour like? Days 1-2

A lot of people have asked me about my tour and what that was like. So I've written up a sort of journal. I'll post segments of it over the next week or so. Here are days 1 and 2, both local to me.

Wed. 3/5/08, Mesa/Tempe, AZ
This morning I arrived at McClintock High School in Mesa Arizona to speak to three classes about writing. Before I got started, my teacher contact, Ms. N, introduced me to a student who interviewed me for the school newspaper, and then I got to meet her other English students, one class at a time. By 1:30 I was done for the school day. At 6:00PM I had my first book signing at Borders on Alma School Road. I was not as nervous as I thought I'd be (doing the school visits really helped with that). It was amazing! Tons of friends came by and from what the store contact person told me, we sold 42 books. Not bad since many friends had already purchased theirs by then.

Thursday, 3/6/08 Phoenix/Scottsdale, AZ
Today’s school was Chaperral High School in Scottsdale. Upon arrival, I discovered there had been a bit of a mix-up in scheduling and I was asked if I could come back in two hours. Since I was over an hour away from home, I decided to grab an early lunch and catch up on some email at the Borders store where I was going to be signing that night. What a pleasant surprise to find a large display of WAKE near the front of the store.

Back at school (which is undergoing a huge construction project that necessitated parking quite far away – a quick and sincere thank you to the kind security gentleman who gave me a lift in his golf cart, by the way), I spoke to three fabulous classes that were made up of some pretty cool people, many of them writers. And their teacher, Ms. M, totally rocks.

After school I headed out to Borders again to hang out in the café and get some more work done. Had a quick dinner at Souper Salad and then it was back to the store for the signing. I had met some really cool students in the Borders café earlier. I noticed the book CRANK by Ellen Hopkins (a book I loved) on their table and we struck up a conversation about it. They were a lot of fun and later they came by and bought a book to share among the three of them. Thanks guys! Several other friends came out to this signing, and I made some new friends and readers as well just by walking around in the store during the quiet moments. Turned out to be another great signing.


Tune in for more over the coming days.

5 comments:

Ada [The Duchess] said...

Oh wow it sounded like a blast. Every writer can only dream of a signing. That's brilliant.

Glad you had a good time.

LiterallyLauren said...

Sounds pretty adventurous! :)

Glad to hear about your trips and I can't wait to hear more.

(If you ever get the chance, Oklahoma would love to have you...)

-Lauren. ;)

Ada [The Duchess] said...

Come to Ontario, Canada Lisa!

Unknown said...

Whenever I need a break from work I love hitting Souper Salad up. If you sign up for their free Souper Fresh Club they'll email you $1 off coupons and free buffet coupons on your birthday. Not a bad deal for very little work ;)

Here's a link:

http://www.soupersalad.com/source/SFC/SFC_Main.aspx

Happy Eating!!!

A.S. King said...

Okay - somewhere you've GOT to outline what that first signing was like. Did you read? How much? Was there Q&A? Or did you just sit and sign?

I LOVE that you went to a school first. I think that's what I'll do, too, to get the heebie-jeebies out of my system!