Get it while you can!
DELIVER ME is selling out. Fast!
I recently learned that the Dorchester warehouse is completely out of stock of DELIVER ME.
Are you kidding me? They printed thousands of copies, and I don't know thousands of people, which means there are readers out there who bought the book simply because they wanted to read it, and not because I begged and cried and pleaded!
Amazon.com has only five copies left in their stock. I've always heard that's how you can really tell that your book is close to selling through its first print-run. Amazon states that there are more to come, but I haven't received word that there will be a second print run on DELIVER ME. Of course, I'll shout it from the rooftops as soon as I hear anything.
My advice for now: Get DELIVER ME while you can!
It never gets old
I've blogged about reviews before. I'll admit it, when
Deliver Me was first released, I was terrified I would be bombarded with people saying how horrible the book is, and that this stupid writer should not be allowed to turn on a computer.
I heaved a HUGE sigh of relief when I read my first review from
Coffee Time Romance, which gave
Deliver Me four coffee cups. I wasn't only relieved, I was ecstatic! Someone other than a family member or friend actually liked my book. That's an awesome feeling of validation.
Deliver Me has received a bunch of stellar reviews in the four or so months since its release, and it just received another great one from
MyShelf.com .
Having someone praise your hard work just never, ever gets old.
BEA 2007 Part Three...Enjoying NYC
I promise this is the last post about my trip to New York for BEA 2007.
If you've never read this blog before then you may not know that I love New York City.
Love it. I try to make my way to the Big Apple whenever I can. I have three staples on my "to do" list when I visit New York: shopping at Macy's, eating Chinese food, and seeing a show...or two...or three. Of course, I was able to squeeze in all three of my favorite things.
On Friday night, I, along with my friend Karen and her sister Julie, saw the new musical
Legally Blonde. Even though I've only caught parts of the movie, I figured the musical would be cute and something different. I loved it, and I've been singing "
Oh my God, Omigod you guys" for the past three weeks!
Best of all, because of Julie's kick-butt connections as an employee at Broadway.com, we were given Row H house seats. Sitting beside us were three of the sweetest ladies you'll ever meet, and they just so happened to be from
Houma, Louisiana. I always run into someone from my home state when I'm in NYC. I must have Cajun-radar or something.
On Saturday, after spending most of my day at BEA, Karen and I tried for tickets to the
Wicked lottery. Even though I had just seen the show in Dallas a few months ago, I was not going to pass up the chance to win front row seats for $26.25. But, alas, of the 200+ people who'd put their name into the basket, our names were not called. To ease our sorrows, we pigged out on
delish Chinese food and reruns of
Beverly Hills, 90210.
When we headed back out to the city early Sunday morning, I went to BEA to sign copies of
Deliver Me in the
RWA booth, and Karen, a.k.a. the
Bestest Gal in the World, sat in line at
The Color Purple box offices for THREE HOURS to buy rush seats for the Sunday evening show. We landed second row seats to see the fabulous Fantasia perform in the starring role.
We decided to try once again for the
Wicked lottery, and Karen's roommate, Joanne, came over to help us out. There were even more people waiting to put their name in the running for the Sunday matinee, but Joanne assured us she had a knack for winning the
Wicked lottery.
Guess what? She was right.
Joanne's name was the third one called. So, on Sunday I was lucky enough to see two of my favorite musicals for less than $30 each! Between
Wicked and
The Color Purple, Karen and I dined at
Cosi, which has the best bread in the world, and
S'mores for dessert. Does life get any better than this?
I'm waiting desperately for my next excuse to visit New York. I just cannot get enough of that beautiful city.
I was on the radio!
We interrupt the regularly scheduled blog post for this special announcement!I know I promised to devote the next few write-ups to my shenanigans at Book Expo America 2007, but when something really cool happens, I just have to blog about it.
A few weeks ago, my fabulous publicist, Tara Settembre, of
Buy the Book PR shot me an email letting me know that she'd found this great radio promotional opportunity. Tara has a knack for coming up innovative promo ideas. Believe me, in this saturated business, you've got to find something really different if you want to stand out, and Tara is a whiz at thinking outside the box.
However, I thought this was a little outside even for her. When I think of books, I don't necessarily think of radio, unless it's an interview on some talk radio station. This, however, was for a pop music station. In fact, KFTZ 103-FM is Idaho's number one pop music station, with a listening audience of 250,000 that includes both Brigham Young University (Idaho) and Idaho State University. We are talking a
lot of people. I wasn't sure about it, but heck, it was only going to cost me one autographed book and a few promo items. It was worth a few late-night listeners hearing my name, right?
Let me tell you, it's a good thing I trust my publicist, because the girl knows what she's doing. The radio spot was fabulous! The on-air personality centered a radio call-in contest around my Farrah Rochon Prize Pack. People in Idaho were actually calling into a radio station to win
my book. How cool is that!
Here's what aired on KFTZ 103-FM:
I just cannot wait for Tara's next amazing promo idea.
BEA Part 2 - The Book Signing
In the previous blog post, I discussed my journey to Book Expo America 2007 in New York City.
I'm sure the average BEA attendee was blown away by the cool new innovations on display, such as Google's Book Search and whatever fancy gadgets you could find in the great big Microsoft booth. But as far as I was concerned, they could have kept all that other stuff. I wanted books! And if the author was there, well that was just the icing on my chocolate cake.
There were author signings galore! And many of the authors there signed advanced copies of their books. I was completely bummed when I realized I'd missed
Janet Evanovich signing Lean Mean Thirteen, but the picture I got of
Tiki Barber signing one of his children's books make up for it.
Many of the authors signed in their publishers' booths. There were several of my fellow Dorchester authors, including Liz Maverick and Marianne Mancusi, signing in the Dorchester booth.
I, however, attended BEA under the Romance Writers of America umbrella. I'm grateful RWA allowed me to sign in their booth, but there were two problems I encountered. First, the RWA authors did not sign until Sunday. By that time even I was tired of BEA. I'm sure the magic had waned for a majority of the other attendees, as well. Secondly, RWA's booth was located alllllll the way on the other side of the Javitz Center. Pretty much in no man's land. I doubt the people who were really interested in romance novels even thought to travel to that corner of the center. Still, I managed to sign just around forty books during my half hour. 
The funniest part of the morning was when a gentleman came up to the booth and started poking around. I asked him "Sir, would you like a novel?" He looks at Deliver Me and asks me what type of novel is it. Of course, the first thing I say is that it is a romance novel. To which he replies, "I don't read romance." The current president of RWA politely informed him that he was sniffing around the wrong booth if he didn't read romance. Yet, he didn't leave. It was the funniest thing!
Okay, if you're not laughing, it's probably because it was one of those you had to be there moments.
Book Expo America - Part 1
Last weekend, I attended my first ever Book Expo America. All I can say is WOW!
I wasn't really sure what to expect, and now that it's over, I can safely say that no matter what I had expected, nothing could compare to the reality.
Books, books, and more books.
Book sellers, book buyers, and book writers (including moi). All of us, book lovers!
It was magnificent.
It was also intimidating as heck!
When I walked into the expo, I instantly felt as if I were in over my head. Sure, that's my usual mode of operation, but this was worse than usual. There were
so many people, and they all walked so fast and with such purpose. There was no one standing in one spot and just looking around, the way I was. Everyone looked as if they had a place to be and knew how to get there.
I had a place to be. I was meeting my agent for the first time. We were to meet at my publisher,
Dorchester's, booth. Problem was, I had absolutely
no idea how to get there. I wandered around, searching and searching, picking up a free book here and there, sweating like I'd just run a marathon (the temperature was at least 90-degrees in the
Javitz Center). Then, suddenly, I literally ran into my agent. I'd never met him before, but gave him a hug like he was my long lost brother. At the very least, he was a familiar name in this sea of unknown, intimidating people.
And after a bit of small talk, we sat down with some frozen yogurt, and got down to the
nitty gritty of this new career I've embarked upon. It was encouraging, and my agent's total belief in my writing ability made me think that I just may have a shot at making it as a writer. That's cool!
There is just too much to say about the expo, and my weekend as a whole, to limit it to one blog post, so expect to read more in the upcoming days about my adventures in NYC at Book Expo America.
