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A Week of Books: Touring and Book Expo America
Monday, June 02, 2008
I'm sitting in my office with my golden retriever Penny sprawled across both my feet. She's barely left my side since I returned from a week-long book tour for Indiana Jones, followed by a weekend at Book Expo America (the annual book trade show) in Los Angeles. It's good to be home, but I must say that seven days immersed in all things bookish is not a bad way to spend the week (despite sleep deprivation). Here's a quick summary of an author on the road
Tuesday: Flew to Minneapolis from Sacramento and did a quick in-s tudio interview with WCCO radio in Minneapolis (Thanks, Don!) then enjoyed a wonderful afternoon hitting a few bookstores to sign stock copies of Indiana Jones and the KOCS and The Judas Strain. Finally in the evening, I did a signing event at a Barnes & Noble in Edina where I talked about the experience of writing Indiana Jones with an enthusiastic crowd, who included a few people who I've only chatted with in the past via email, so it was nice to put a face to a screenname. In attendance also was "Minnesota Jones," who had a table set up with reproduction props from the earlier films. It was great meeting him and seeing his collection (if I had remembered to bring my camera, I would've taken a picture....it was an impressive collection).
Wednesday: Got up at 4 am and flew to Atlanta, Georgia, where I was rushed from plane to the studios at CNN and did an interview with CNN International and CNN.com...then it was off to more stock signings across Atlanta, then did a special stopover at Eagle Eye Books (thanks, George!) and continued on to Wordsmiths Books, where I did another talk and Q&A to a great audience.
Thursday: flew to Pittsburgh, PA (which really is a beautiful river city: rolling hills, handsome neighborhoods, wonderful waterfront). Again I hit a few stores to sign some stock, then off to a unique event put together by Mystery Lovers Bookshop ( Thanks, Richard!). The bookstore arranged for me to speak before and after a screening of Indiana Jones at the stunning Oak Theater in Oakmont, PA (Thanks, Jeff!). It was great fun talking about the movie afterward, like sitting with 150 close friends and debating the pros and cons of the film. I signed books in the lobby after the talk, where the Indy event overlapped a charity screening of Sex in the City. Those arriving for the sneak preview (a very boisterous crowd of women) also ended up getting in line for signed and doodled copies of the Indy book. So all in all it was a fun night.
Friday thru Sunday: After two hours of sleep, up at 2 am on Friday to catch the red-eye back to the West Coast to attend Book Expo America in Los Angeles. Okay, if you've never been, Book Expo America is a gigantic trade show where tens of thousands of those in the publishing industry gather to do business, attend parties, talk about books, attend more parties, take meetings, then more parties. I guess somewhere along the way Prince even did a concert at one of the shindigs. So what was my experience? I attended the Booksense Luncheon just after landing on Friday, which was a great deal of fun...especially since in attendance was my idol Ray Bradbury. Then on Saturday, I signed a slew of copies of The Last Oracle, did a podcast, and shot a video about the book (all I will say about that is that it inv olved stuffed animals).
Oh, and yes, there were parties. HarperCollins put on a grand gala on one of the backlots at the 20th Century Fox studios where a few stars where in attendance: Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Nealon, Marilu Henner, Mariel Hemingway, Cheech Marin, and the delightful Yeardly Smith (who is perhaps best known as the voice of Lisa Simpson. Meanwhile I spent a good portion of the event hanging out with the folks from HarperCollins Canada and managers from Indigo and Chapters (Hi Shannon and Naomi and Lisa!).
Otherwise, I spent the rest of the days at the trade show doing what most people were doing: gathering swag and galleys. I got a rubber chicken, brain, and shark. I ate free cookies and cupcakes. But I also found several books that I'm dying to read, including Ted Bell's Tsar and a debut novel about a woman searching for her lost friend in Papua New Guinea titled The White Mary. But I think the most intriguing galley I picked up had the best title. It's a cookbook titled Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States.
But I also met all sorts of friends and fellow authors. Here's proof.
That's Chris Moore on the left, the hilarious author of many of my favorite books, including Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, which is coming out in a deluxe edition with gilt-edged pages and a faux-leather cover. I was surprised to hear that his book is actually taught at seminaries. On the right is my good friend Susan Tunis (who is going to kill me for posting this picture....then again I did put her in my novel The Judas Strain and did awful things to her, so I'm doomed anyway).
Monday: As I stated at the beginning...safely back home with the dogs.
Jim
Comments
Name: Anarmatyday Date: 2009-02-09
Hi, cool site, good writing ;)
