AUTHORS FEAST

Have you heard of an authors feast, but had no idea what it was? Same here. But now that I've been to one, I can tell you all about it. Authors lie naked across a banquet table, and booksellers eat food from your body while you tell them about your current book.

Wait a darn minute.

I'm not sure that's right. I think that was a dream. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was a dream. Okay, scratch the naked on the table part. Now I'm sitting fully clothed at the table. Booksellers around me. They eat while I talk about my book. (All attending authors are fed before the event. One author to every table.) After ten or fifteen minutes, we're told to change tables. An escort leads us to the next table where we are surrounded by booksellers and we tell them about our book. After ten or fifteen minutes, we're told to change tables and we do it all over again. I'm guessing there were twenty to thirty tables at the event I attended in Detroit (GLIBA, Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association). Each writer visits three tables in all. It took me one table to really get into the groove. Sorry, first table. I couldn't quite grasp that I was supposed to do almost all of the talking all of the time. That seemed rude, but by my second table I understood that this is all about sharing my book with booksellers. It sounds weird, but it was actually very nice.

Book Tour

I'm in the middle of my book tour, but I wanted to drop in with a couple of photos from Raven Hill Orchard located in Julian, California.
This was a book event put together by Susan McBeth of Adventures By the Book. She partnered with Slow Food Urban San Diego, and the adventure was truly the best book event ever.

A journey with Adventures By The Book is like diving into a pop-up book.

Readers join authors on a wonderful trip that allows them to experience the book in a personal way. We took a bus ride to Julian, California, where we toured Raven Hill Orchard, picked apples, wandered through the town, ate lunch, drank beer, ate apple pie, talked about books, talked about writing, talked about Slow Food Urban San Diego, talked about The Orchard, and then returned to San Diego while watching the wonderful documentary Queen of The Sun. The package was inexpensive, and all of the readers received a copy of The Orchard. The weather was as perfect as weather could be. About 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. A perfect, perfect day.

The following day I had lunch with the most lovely group of women ever. Almost everyone at the luncheon had already read The Orchard and loved it, so that was extra nice. It's a different kind of event when readers have read the book beforehand. The discussion unfolds naturally, and the enthusiasm for the book seems to energize the room. So rewarding for a writer. Both experiences were fantastic in different ways.