Tales from the Book-Side
- Maggie Shayne
- 17 hours ago
- 6 min read
Book Signings!
VIDEO EDITION (Scroll down for the text edition.)
TEXT EDITION
Ahh, book signings!
I'm doing my first book signing in quite a long time this coming Saturday February 7th, 3:30-5 at All My Friends Books, right on Main St. in Cortland NY. It's my hometown bookstore–the nearest one to me, that is. I live about 15 minutes north of Cortland in the hills. Having a bookstore so nearby is a dream come true.
So booksignings are what's on my mind this week, and wondering how it will go, and I thought I'd share some booksigning memories of interest. Of course the best memories are the ones with authors who've since moved on, and the image above is one of those. Carolyn Andrews, on my right, wrote for Harlequin Temptation, Garda Parker on my left, wrote for for Kensington's historical and contemporary lines. I loved them both very much. Still do.
We've had a lot of fun, my writer pals and I, at book signing events over the years. We writers don't often travel alone. We like to move in packs. So most of my signing events have been multi-author gigs, where nobody ever has to sit there all alone giving out directions to the restrooms.
Oh, it can be brutal. And also great fun.
Like that one time, when some writer-pals and I were signing books at a mall bookstore–Waldenbooks or Borders, one of those. Don't you miss them? Anyway, a lady dressed like she'd come straight from a Ren Faire danced by our table sprinkling us, our hair, our clothes, and our books with "fairy dust" in the form of fine gold glitter.
I was leaving a glitter trail for days. You can shower all you want, but you can't get glitter out, not entirely. Glitter leaves when glitter decides to leave.
At another signing, it was so dead I felt like I'd set up my table in the middle of the desert, and even the vultures were avoiding me. Suddenly, an eager reader came bouncing up to the table, raising my hopes.
Then she asked, "Do you have the new Stephen King book?"
And I said, "I don't work here, I'm an author. But I'm sure they have it inside."
"You're an author?"
I nodded. "Yes, I'm here signing copies of my latest book."
"You wrote this?" she asked, picking up the book and turning it over to read the blurb.
"Yep, I wrote it."
"Wow." She set the book down, looked me right in the eyes and said, "So, do you know Stephen King?"
My companion grabbed for her tall diet cola, because sucking it down kept her from laughing out loud.
"Of course," I said. "We all know each other."
And my companion spat soda from her nose.
Yeah, we might not've sold very many books in those days, but we sure did have a good time.
At another mall book signing with fellow authors, an angry woman stopped at our table to angrily declare, "YOU are the reason more girls don't study math and science!"
My companion that day had studied engineering at S.U.
Then there was the book signing I missed entirely. It was at writers' convention, the highlight of the week, when the hotel doors were thrown open to the public and some 200 writers lined the hotel's convention area, each with a table full of books and bookmarks and buttons and free pens. There were multiple checkout lines at the far ends of the giant space, and customer queues wound throughout like snakes.
I used to do this mega-signing every year. And I have some great stories from the annual event.
The first is the one I missed. I was having a drink at the hotel bar with a young editor named Cindy Hwang from Penguin-Putnam's Berkley Books. We had such a great conversation that we talked straight through the booksigning. By the time I remembered to check my watch, the event was over.
On the up side, she asked for a look at my work and a few weeks later we had a book deal, and I wound up writing several novels for Berkley, including the Immortals series.
Then there was the year of the vampire rumors. Around the time my Wings in the Night was starting to become known and Christine Feehan started releasing her Carpathians, rumors about the two of us began circulating.
Rumor 1: Maggie Shayne and Christine Feehan are the same person, as they've never been seen in the same place at the same time.
Rumor 2: Maggie Shayne and Christine Feehan are arch enemies who hate each other, as they've never been seen in the same place at the same time.
Rumor 3: Maggie Shayne cannot be photographed without consent.
Yeah, that one threw me, too. The tale went that some fans once tried to photograph me at an event, but my image did not show up on the film. Later, they asked my permission to take my photo, and I said sure, and it worked just fine. So they were convinced that I couldn't be photographed without my consent.
I let that third rumor ride for a while.
Christine and I took a photo together to prove were were two separate writers. And after we met due to the rumors, we became really great friends. I even went out to the West Coast to co-host her reader appreciation event two years in a row.
Now those were some booksignings to remember. Die-hard vampire fans, one and all, usually in costume!
For years at the big RWA convention book signing mega event, I worked magic that I would sell out. All my books would be gone.
Magic has a sense of humor, though, so the first time that happened, it was because the books were missing and couldn't be found. I had a handful, sold them all, and I was done. Very funny, magic. Right after the signing, the books were found stacked in a hallway in the hotel. Poor, sad, homeless books!
Eventually there came a time when I did sell every single copy, of which there had been 72. And that was very cool even though it took the entire two hours of the event.
But the book signing that stands out like no other is the very first time a line formed in front of my table. Only a very few authors out of the 200+ at these mega signing events would ever have a line. The few who did were placed around the outer edges, to make room for their inevitable lines. Authors like Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz, and Susan Elizabeth Phillips. And they always had lines.
But this time, little old me, sitting in the trenches with all the other middle-range authors, experienced the spontaneous formation, like a twister touching down, of a long and impressive line of readers waiting for me to sign their books.
And I did so, crying all over their pages and smudging the ink of my signature on every last one of them, and muttering, "I have a line."
At one unforgettable booksigning, the half-brother I'd never met and had only recently learned about showed up! THAT was a surprise.
Who knows what happy memories will be made at this weekend's event?
Again, that's Saturday the 7th, starting at 3:30 pm.
So who's bringing the Oreos? (They're vegan, you know.)
Next week I have something really fun in store, so be sure to subscribe so you'll get a notification when new posts go up. Leave me a note in comments!
BN BOGOs & BARGAINS
All February long, every book in Wings in the Night is Buy one, get one free!
All February long, Twilight Phantasies (Wings in the Night, book 1) is on sale for 2.99!)
CASH IN AT KOBO
You can also read the entire Wings in the Night series FREE with Kobo Plus
This week on the other blogs....
