Happy Easter, everyone. This morning I’ll be at church,
where the choir is singing Beethoven’s “Hallelujah” from Christ on the Mount of Olives. I love the piece. Here’s Robert Shaw and
the Atlanta Symphony orchestra, if you are interested.
Last week I wrote of the loss of Morgan, our golden
retriever. Now a week later, I’ll write of my experience at my first book
signing and the release party we threw the weekend before her passing.
I won’t bore you with how many books I did or didn’t sell.
Although there are economic realities to the authoring business, these two
events were mostly about having a good time.
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| Jim & Wendy |
Jan and I arrived in St. Mary’s, GA on a beautiful Saturday
afternoon in time for a leisurely lunch down by the river before our scheduled
time at Ms. Wendy’s Wonderful World of Books. While there we had a great time
talking with Wendy, her husband, friends and customers. We also got to meet my
editor, who lives in the vicinity, and stopped by.
The funniest moment came when someone told me I had a neat
signature. Jan burst out laughing, and told the collective audience how I often
couldn’t read my own handwriting a day or two later—which got us all talking about
schools not teaching script anymore and how would people sign their names, with
an X? Maybe everything would be iris scans...and off we went.
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| Amazing what they can do for cakes |
The next day, we had the launch party at the clubhouse in
our small condo community. It allowed neighbors to walk and Savannah friends to
escape the St. Patrick’s Day madness (a half million people pour into our city
of maybe 140,000) and join us in the ‘burbs.
Jan ordered a cake with an edible frosting picture of the
book cover. And a good time was had by all.
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| Jan Provides a feast |
But the best part came a few days later when a neighbor rang
our doorbell to buy three more books for her friends because she had liked Bad Policy so much. And later in a
conversation with one of our conservative neighbors who said they liked the
book as well as Michael Connelly’s stuff; the only problem was that I had made
the scummy politicians Republican. Or the email that blamed me for the person’s
sleep deprivation because they couldn’t put the book down until well after
midnight.
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| Circle of church women |
Even if they are all lying, I’m going to choose to believe
them and savor the moment. Wouldn’t you?
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| Neighbors catching some spring air |
~ Jim
Congratulations, Jim. I'll never forget my first book launch. I was lucky in that the book was an anthology so I was one of fourteen authors. It was a shared moment, but I would have felt put on the spot had I been my myself.
ReplyDeleteI hope you had a blast. The pictures were fun to see. The cake looks fabulous. So glad it was a wonderful day for you.
Thanks for sharing, Jim. Hope you continue with big sales. Looking forward to seeing you at Malice and the S.C. Book Festival. Happy Easter!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, Jim. It's a real upper to be the center of attention for something you accomplieshed, isn't it. It sounds like everything is going your way with your book. I got my copy yesterday, and I'm looking forward to starting it as soon as I finish at least one of the three books I'm reading now.
ReplyDeleteOh, by the way, I loved listening to the Hallelujah Chorus by Beethoven. The songs we sing with our choir on Easter are so filled with joy, too. I love Easter Sunday Mass.