I was at the SIBA trade show this past Sunday, and boy what a great event. I had so much fun, met so many great writers and booksellers, and smiled so much my cheeks hurt all the way home. (A small price to pay if I do say so myself).
SIBA puts authors and independent booksellers together so they know what books are out there and how to tell their customers about them. A huge thanks to all the SIBA folks for inviting me to this terrific event. My day in a nutshell was like this:
6am: Get up, shower, get dressed, drive the 2.5 hours to Greenville, SC. The hubby went with me, so it was a fun trip there.
10am: Arrive early, drive around for something to do to kill time. Checked out the local Barnes & Noble to see if my fellow B&B Babe
Amy Huntley's book "The Everafter" was in the stores yet (It wasn't, but it releases today, so go check it out).
10:45am: Arrive at event. Try to find registration desk and where I'm supposed to go for the meet and greet brunch. Wish I'd skipped the driving around part and arrived earlier.
11am: Found brunch and got there on time after all. Met nice authors,
Beth Hoffman,
Gigi Amateau, and
Beverly Barton. (Also snagged their books later so I'm looking forward to reading them). Ate some yummy pot roast and cheesecake.
12pm: Went to a Moveable Feast. This was fun, and a little like speed dating (I think, as I've never actually done speed dating). 21 tables will booksellers were set up, and we (the authors) were the entertainment. We each got a table number, sat down, and talked about our books for ten minutes. Then we went to the next table in line and did it again. For two hours. (Future writers out there...this is a great way to practice boiling down your story to a few quick sentences when you get ready to query/pitch. Make your friends randomly stop you and pitch your book) Everyone was so nice and asked lots of great questions. Even better, most of them were pretty excited about the book (Yay!)
2pm: Book signing! They sat us down in a big room with a stack of our books next to us, and the booksellers came in and took home the books they were interested in. I had a huge stack of books and I wish I'd had the clarity of mind to take a photo of the Wall-O-Books, but I was too excited. I only had four books left at the end (out of 100, I think) so I feel it was a great success. Here's me and my SIBA helper Jim Veatch. He made sure the dust jackets were on the page I needed to sign, which was a HUGE help when you have a bunch of people waiting on you and have to flip through pages every book.
3pm: Drive home. We did take one detour to go see the Georgia Guiding Stones, which are pretty funky and I'll talk about them later this week. The hubby took the photos and I need to get them off his camera.
7pm: Got home. Made food, curled up and watched TV until bed.
Ah, such is the exciting life of an author.
