Archive | June 2014

So This Happened…

imageJune 21, 2014, Long Beach Public Library saw a gathering of writers and readers (including the writers reading their stuff OUT LOUD. Gulp)

And since my motto lately is “Do what you can with what you have,” until I figure out how to pry photos from my ailing computer (Really, Mario, your timing sucks), WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).

As  far as sales, I sold 4 books, which is a new personal best for a signing event (including the solos at the Green Door Gallerie – NOW CLOSED).

We were required to donate a copy of our books to the library’s collection, which I did happily.  I like the idea of people discovering Liz and Ty (and Millie, Joey, Angie, and Beanie) through the library.

We also had to read excerpts from our books. I was in one of the first panels with Kimi Flores  of “It All Started With a Lima Bean”

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Also my tablemate. Nobody elbowed anybody else.

 Lorenz Font (Tormented), and Jessica Gibson (The Harder I Fall). Did I get pictures? I don’t know – the computer won’t share. The ones above? Thank God for smartphones (also useful for taking payments)

We had a good time, about 20 authors, including Wade Lefevre (whose “Snipe Hunt” is gripping and scary), and 80 some readers.

You get to feel like a real rock start at these things: you’re signing copies of books, people want you to autograph Kindle covers, and pose for a photo with you (incentive to get some Nerium from a friend of mine and drop some gross tonnage).

As always, I had my trusty assistant/sidekick, Sandy Esparza, with me. No, I didn’t get any good pictures. Selfies are not my thing.

I’ll work on it. Or make Sandy do it.

So,  emboldened, I have signed up for other signings. In other parts of the country. Definitely in Austin, come Feb 7, for Deep In the Heart, and Wilmington, NC October 24, 2015 for Life’s a Beach. Sadly nowhere near the Sanitary Fish Market (What? Okay, I’m allergic to fish, but they turn out mean hush puppies and chicken).

I’ll keep you posted.

Reading By The Sea Part Deux

Hey! You in the Los Angeles/Orange County (and Ventura and San Diego if you get ambitious) area with nothing to do Saturday June 21 (it’s a specific demographic).

You like books, right? Sure you do or you wouldn’t be reading this blog.

Reading on the Beach

Come to Reading By the Beach

101 Pacific Ave

Long Beach, CA

11 AM – 4:30 PM

Authors! Swag!

mugs and bookmarks

This is swag. It’s mugs (two of them sold already) and bookmarks. We’ve got bracelets, too. And a couple of raffles.

And there are other authors and we’re going to have to get up and READ from our books and answer questions…

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Bracelets

I’ll sign copies…I’ll pose for pictures…

COME ON DOWN!!!

Reading By The Sea

For the 4 or 5 of you who actually read this blog…

 

Saturday, June 21, 2014 AD (or CE) from 11:00 AM to 4:30 PM, I will be at the Long Beach Public Library (101 Pacific Ave, Long Beach, CA, for your GPS), selling and signing copies of “These Foolish Things” and “At Last” (In gold Sharpie. Ooooooo).

 

Reading on the Beach

As you can see, there will be a lot of us (not all of it romance novels, Guys), and we will have to get up and talk in panels (Reading excerpts. No big deal).

Come on out. It’ll be fun.

I will give away a signed set of books and have a raffle for a gift bag for anyone who buys a set of books (Coffee mug, bookmark, Dunkin Donuts coffee, for sitting back and reading). There will be the usual books and bracelets and NEW THIS TIME….Minibook bookmarks by Isabella Rae. I can’t wait to get them.

Come on down!

Map of Long Beach Public Library

Map of 101 Pacific Ave, Long Beach, CA

In the Beginning…

Okay, that’s a bit grandiose, but I’ll stick with it.

By the way, this is the first post I will write completely on an iPad. I am not a Luddite

(go look it up. If you attended Franklin Pierce Law Center aka Frank’s, Buzz Scher would apply this term to Jim Duggan. Of course, Buzz also called me a bastard in our Trial class because I’d convinced Yvonne Imbert to go along with a couple of pranks during our presentation to make him laugh for the first time after a couple of terrible weeks),  I just presently don’t have the budget to indulge my taste in electronics with bells and whistles.  I blame some of you guys because if my stories were selling as they deserve to, I could. Go talk people into buying my books. Now. Go do it and then come back.

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The picture shown above (and by the way, Luddite or not, I am not finding this iPad to be as easy to use for this as Mario, my laptop. What? You don’t name your important stuff? Weirdo) is the original document form of “These Foolish Things.” Really. El Cheapo composition book from CVS bought on he way out of Boston for a 70 mile bus ride to Concord, NH. This was December 2000, ski season, so the 70 miles would take 2 and a half hours on a Friday night. Fun.

Anyway, I had been thinking of an idea for a love story that was the opposite of a straight up courtship story. You know, they meet, they figure out they love each other, “happily ever after.” What about the other end of it? (You’ve heard this)

So, I got the book and pens and just started to write. The following pictures (if i can get the iPad to cooperate) show the process of “I like it. Eh, maybe I don’t like it. Screw it. What was I thinking? It’s gone.”

Technology is good, but sometimes there is no better connection than the mind/hand to keep the creative process flowing.

Maybe, one day this composition book would be valuable to academics, a relic of the time before word processors and crashing hard drives (Mario, don’t even think about it). Not Shakespeare folio valuable, but certainly worth more than say, Justin Bieber’s diary. Or Kim Kardashian’s next sex tape (oh, you know there’s going to be another one that’ll be released mid-divorce).