Friday, April 27, 2007

First Book Road Trip--in a Blinding Blizzard!

I just returned from my first 2-day, 1 night promotion trip, and I thought I'd tell you how I crammed in as much as possible--and how you can/should do the same when you promote your book. I drove north at 2:30 pm Tuesday and barely made it over very-scary Monument Hill in a wild snowstorm to arrive in Boulder at 5 pm for dinner with some members of the Rocky Mountain Sisters in Crime chapter there. At 7 pm was our "Mystery Through the Ages" panel signing at High Crimes bookstore (with fellow Five Star authors, Pat Stoltey and Mike Befeler), and I was heartened by the hardy audience that came in from the rain to hear us (since Boulder is at a lower altitude than CO. Springs, the precipitation was just rain there).

After sleeping over at Mike's home, I did the following Wednesday:
- met with a gift basket business owner, who took 3 copies on consignment for "Mystery Lover's" themed gift baskets
- two stock signings at B&N bookstores
- a pitch to the Westminster acquisition librarian to buy my book
- a visit with a Book Club (wine & food included) who had bought & read copies of A REAL BASKET CASE

I even got some shopping done at the Flatiron Crossing Mall! If some/all of my signed stock sells, the trip probably netted me 30-45 direct sales and hopefully more word-of-mouth sales. This weekend is my Book Launch at a local Barnes & Noble in Colorado Springs on Saturday afternoon and another "Mystery Through the Ages" panel signing at Reader's Cove in Ft. Collins on Sunday afternoon.

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