Saturday, October 01, 2005

24 Hours of Non-stop Promotion

Wow, what a busy 24 hours! It started last night with the Covenant mystery dinner. It was much bigger and better than I expected. Major kudos to Kerry Lynn Blair who wrote the whole thing and did a fantastic job. We had in excess of 180 people at the Hampton Inn by the Salt Lake airport. Michelle Ashman Bell was a hoot as a Soap Opera Diva. Seeing her with a long blond wig, false eyelashes, and a slinky gown was quite the change. Don't know if I can ever look at her the same way again.

Of course I was the sleazy business partner. Talk about typecasting. However I did get to run around from table to table, flirting, eating of peoples plates, and checking the bouquet of their fruit punch. Lot's of fun.

It was also nice to get back into the swing of things with my books. I actually signed several copies of Cutting Edge which I wrote close to five years ago. Nice to know people still remember me. I had one woman tell me she'd listened to Cutting Edge on tape 12x! Even I'm not that big of a glutton for punishment. But it brought tears of gratitude to me eyes. I think I sold about a dozen copies of House of Secrets. Definitely something I want to do again next year.

Today I did two book signings. The first was at the Provo Seagull. Great group of employees who I enjoyed very much. I only sold one book as things were pretty dead between conference sessions, but had fun anyway. I realized that I need to start off conversations but mentioning my previous books as no one knows who the heck I am until I mention Cutting Edge and Into the Fire. Close to three years between books will do that. Guess I've got some work to do before I become a household name.

The second signing was a Lady's Night at the Spanish Fork Seagull. It was a roaring success. Not sure how many books I sold, but I would guess over twenty. The manager said they did something like 5x the usual sales. Kerri Robinson was there signing A Banner is Unfurled. I bought a copy from her and she bought a copy of House of Secrets.

I also met Lee Ann Setzer who writes the Tiny Talk books. She publishes with CFI. Both Kerri and Lee Ann seemed to do well also. Hopefully I'll have a new Shandra book out in time to do this again in April.

One thing I tried for the first time was bringing book flyers. It worked amazingly well. People are sometimes uncomfortable talking to an author when they first come into the store, but they'll take a flyer every time. Lot's of them got left on shelves, but probably a dozen people came back over and bought books.

Good night.

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