Post Book Signing Excitement
Well I’ve had a heck of a week. I had my second ever book signing which was amazing and I’ll get to that in a minute, but as you might imagine, I spent a lot of the week trying to hype up the event. I was all over social media making videos and posts, I wrote about it here two weeks ago, I did everything short of standing on my roof and shouting about it, and that’s only because my roof isn’t very high.
The thing that might have gotten the most attention though is the series of tweets to the left. For those unaware, that is the Twitter handle of Jerry Holkins, AKA Tycho Brahe from the webcomic Penny Arcade. I’ve been reading his stuff since I was in high school, which is a long, long time.
They happened to do a strip about a sad looking author sitting alone at a book signing at Barnes and Noble just three days before my event, and I felt the need to comment. I had no expectation whatsoever that it would garner any kind of response, he’s a popular guy after all, so you can imagine my surprise when he just straight up bought my book.
He even retweeted another post I made about it on the day of the event. I was understandably “shook” and made sure that everyone I’ve ever known knew about how excited I was to be recognized, even in passing, by one of my favorite writers.
The event was great, too. I don’t want to undersell that. It was good to spend time with the massive numbers of friends and family that showed up, as well as to meet new future readers. I got to talk to a few folks who were, themselves, actively pursuing writing, some young and some older. It goes without saying that authors also enjoy writing, so most of us (I assume, I guess I can only speak for me) are happy to talk about the process as much as the end result.
And I met other authors. I was only able to attend this event thanks to a helping hand from my friend, K.C. Smith, someone I was fortunate enough to share a table with at my first book signing. I owe them a huge thank you, and now I’ve met even more authors and gotten even more advice, resources, and connections to help me continue this writing journey.
Basically, this week, and this weekend were great. I had a ton of fun, I learned a lot, I sold some books, and I took an amazing nap (this whole thing was exhausting. But now I’m full speed ahead on Mattson Academy: Mind Over Magi (coming September 3rd, THIS YEAR), finishing Mattson Academy 3 (2 chapters to go), and then… who knows?
Though I will say, I was discussing my half-written idea for another book with a fellow writer when one of the staff at Barnes and Noble walked by and said, “Uh, please finish that.”
If that’s not affirming, I don’t know what is.
