The second week of November was a week of firsts for me as an author:
- My first opportunity to meet with a book club (who had all read my book!)
- My first author signing event
- My first piece of fan mail (okay fan email) from a total (well, near-total) stranger
The book club invitation came from a former co-worker. I thought it would be fun, but it turned out even better than I expected. It turns out that there’s something really gratifying about people liking your book enough to want to know how you came up with the idea and wondering about all kinds of details you wove in.
They also invited me to read. After a short discussion, we settled on the first scene from The Demon’s in the Details, the second book in the series, which comes out in January. They must have liked it, because they invited me to come back once it’s out.
The next day, I attended my first author signing event. A little town about twenty miles south of where I live holds a Christmas Festival each year, including a parade and lots of vendors. The historical society arranges a signing event for local authors–first come, first served. As soon as I saw the notice on Facebook, I hopped right on it.
I didn’t sell a lot of books, because I timed things poorly and was essentially out of books to sell, but I did generate a lot of traffic. I think about a dozen friends came through to wish me well. Some had me sign copies they’d bought.
Afterwards, an author who was coming on for the next shift let me know that one of our local libraries is very open to hosting author signing events. Once I have a second book, I plan to pursue that.
The fan mail came from a woman who won a copy of The Demon Always Wins from the blog tour giveaway I did when it was released. She lives in Florida and the book is set in Florida. She wrote to say she’d enjoyed it and was amused by one of the lines from the book, from the demon Belial, who does not enjoy Florida. He says, “Hell might be hot, but at least it was a dry heat.”
In other news, book two of the series, The Demon’s in the Details, went to the proofreader this weekend. Now I just have to acquire a Mac, buy Vellum software and learn how to format a book and it will be ready to go.
There’s such a thing as too many firsts.
Eight Ladies Writing 
What fun! It must be really cool to be in a book club and be able to interrogate the author, too!
They seemed to enjoy it.
You’re going gangbusters, Jeanne! Soon it will be seconds, thirds, and thousandths.
Seconds, for sure.
What an excellent week, Jeanne. Looking forward to hearing about more fantastic firsts in the months to come!
Thanks!
Glad the entire week was good, even great. Tom says he is ready to read your second book NOW.
It’s at the proofreader, so SOON!
That’s all great news, Jeanne! And such a good reminder to keep an eye on local events/opportunities for signings. That’s definitely on my radar for 2019, but probably not until the first full-length novel comes out.
Re: Vellum – I cannot sing its praises loudly enough! I absolutely love it. There are a few minor things I’ve tried to make it do that I don’t think it can, but it is a breeze to use, and if you pay the one-time cost for the full package, you can render version after version of the book as you tweak it, with no extra cost! (Also, friends tell me there might be workaround for the extra things I want to do, and I should email customer support, because they are apparently fantastic – so keep that in mind!)
Ooh, good to know! I’m feeling a little intimidated, but there were a lot of issues with my first book and I had to ask to have it reformatted multiple times as issues turned up. I feel like I really need to be able to handle this myself to ensure the degree of responsiveness I want.