Book Oopsies and a Winner

We've been talking about blips in our booksignings this week. Fortunately, I've had a good run with my signings, but I do have two stories to share.

First off, when my SORORITY 101 series debuted, I had a launch party in Boston with all of my work friends, a ton of writer friends, my agent, my sister, brother, nieces, and cousins. It was a huge blowout and I was hot, sweaty, nervous wreck. As I gave my speech toward the end of the night, I looked around the room to thank certain people. When I saw the person's face, I thanked them, and proceeded around the room. However, I pulled a Hilary Swank. I forgot to thank my then husband! It wasn't totally my fault because he was standing behind a pillar and I couldn't see him. I did correct the mistake, but I was horrendously embarassed!



The other oopsies was when my book THE OTHER SIDE: A TEEN'S GUIDE TO GHOST HUNTING AND THE PARANORMAL was released, my co-authors (my now fiance, Patrick Burns, and Dave Schrader) and I were having our launch party at Dave's Darkness Radio event at the Queen Mary. Only problem was, the books arrived a week after the event. Talk about egg on the face! We had 200 people there who wanted to buy our books. So, our amazing publisher got the attendee list and addresses and mailed them all a FREE copy of it. That was incredibly generous!



Let's hope neither of those things happen again!

Last week, I put up a giveaway for C.C. Hunter's BORN AT MIDNIGHT...and the winner is...

*****TEPEE*****

Please e-mail me offline with your name and address at marley_gibson AT yahoo dot com. Congrats!

Next week...the launch of my new book GHOST HUNTRESS: THE DISCOVERY!

Hugs,
Marley = )

Near-Fiascoes in Book Event World

Inspired by Shannon Hale's Mortification Monday (thanks Wendy!) this week some of the Buzz Girls are sharing book event fiascoes with the world. Now, hopefully I'm not jinxing myself (*throws salt over shoulder*) but I've never had a true book event fiasco. I've had some near misses, though, so I'll dish on those...

• For my debut launch party at Houston's Blue Willow Bookshop, my parents were planning on flying down from Oklahoma City to join the party. It was their only child's first book and they wanted to be there to celebrate. They packed their overnight bag, went to the airport, and... realized that they had misread the landing time as the departure time. They had missed their flight! Luckily, they caught the next one (it's only a hour long flight, thank goodness) and, despite cutting it quite close, made it just in time!

• My next signing was at Katy Budget Books, also in Houston. Unfortunately, that was the time when my mother was in the hospital and I was up in Oklahoma City to be with her and my dad. She was still in the hospital, but stable, and I didn't want to flake out on the booksigning. So I bought a ticket down and back on the same day, leaving myself plenty of time to get to the signing. Three hours extra, in fact. Guess how late my plane took off? Yep, three hours! I made it, though... barely. However, it was summer vacation, and apparently everyone who had been in the store the week before had been buying books for their trips because, literally, two people showed up. And I knew one of them. It was a very emotionally draining day, but meeting the one fan who came in already having read my book and asking me to sign the cover with silver marker, to take pictures with her for her blog, that made it all worthwhile.

All of my other events have been pretty smooth (*knocks on wood*) with only the typical no-one-shows-up dramas and do-I-have-to-read-pages worries. If those are the worst things that ever happen in my booksigning career, then I'll county myself lucky. (*goes in search of four-leaf clovers*)

Hugs,
TLC

teralynnchilds.com

Book Event Fiascos

I absolutely love book events, whether I'm The Author, an author, or a fan of the author. And when these events run smoothly for everybody involved, great. Unfortunately, glitches are inevitable, and I've had my share.


As you might know, RWA (Romance Writers of America) holds its national conference every summer. Last year, it took place in Orlando, FL. Since it was the summer Lifted came out, I was especially excited because I was eligible to sign at the gigantic book event that takes place the night before the conference. Authors, writers, and readers flood into a ballroom in hopes to get books signed by Meg Cabot, Nora Roberts, and Wendy Toliver.



Ha! But really, I happen to have family and friends in Orlando, and they sweet-talked (bribed?) all their friends into coming. So I was expecting a fairly sizable crowd, if only to brush by me and grab a free bookmark. Brandishing my "Yes I'm supposed to be here" pass, I strolled through the rows and rows of authors (nicer to stalk this way than in the bathrooms).




When I found my name tent, I just stood there, dumbstruck. No books. As I tried to process the horrible truth that my books had not made it, people voiced their condolences and I tried to smile and pretend like it was no big deal that bunches of people were coming to see me, and that I'd booked a red eye flight and paid for an extra night at the hotel so I could be there on time. Then Marley and Tina had a fabulous idea: Write "Sold Out" on my name tent and just smile and hand out bookmarks. Sure enough, it drummed up some interest and even though I'd gotten a hold of my "fans" and told them not to come, I had a wonderful time meeting readers and other writers. The rest of the conference was perfect, from visiting Harry Potter at Universal with my fabulous agent Christina Hogrebe to hobnobbing with the Buzz Girls in our Awards Night finery (photo: left to right Tina, Marley, me, Tera).

If you're an author, have you ever had a book event glitch? Here's a link to Shannon Hale's stories, and click here for James Dashner's.

What I'm reading: The Book Thief (still, because I'm spending so much time on my proposal)