Adventures in Book Signing

As a published author now I’ve come to realize how important book signing events are to the process of book sales and thanks to the efforts of my Marketing Director, Leah Roberts, I’ve been able to organize quite a number of them for this year. Taking the step of hiring in help was a big deal for me. I’m a freelance copywriter in my day job and a single mom to boot – every minute of my day is crammed with competing priorities and I have an enormous control freak button that a lot of self-employed people share; it sometimes prevents me from letting go of details.

Since hiring Leah, however, all that has changed. She has taken over the organization of my schedule with vigor and grace and I am enormously grateful to her for stepping in and taking charge. So far this year I’ve been at Chapters and Indigo stores in Milton, Brampton and Mississauga and I’ll be appearing at the London Chapters on 1037 Wellington Road, Saturday May 25 and the Oakville Chapters at Dorval Crossing on Sunday June 9^th. Leah is also working on book signings for Burlington, Stoney Creek, Peterborough, Dundas and Toronto/Etobicoke.

I tired this on my own last year and although I had the best of intentions, I was just unable to organize the number of book signings I would have liked. Although my publisher, Manor House Publishing, has been stellar in all ways, it is a sad fact of life that unless one is a bona fide best selling author, a publisher doesn’t have enormous resources to devote to promotion.

That’s cool with me. I now have Leah!

Each book signing has a different flavour. I’ve been very fortunate to share the signing table at each of my events so far with fellow Manor House author Heidi Cowie. Heidi is an accomplished therapist and her book, “Touch the Whales” is a superb collection of stories from her own life about how she has conquered fear.

We’ve noticed that even though the large Indigo and Chapters stores appear to have similar layouts and outlooks, the clientele that walks through the front door can vary, from the gregarious and outgoing folks in Brampton and Milton to the focused and introspective individuals in Mississauga. Being a relatively outgoing individual, I am always open to conversation and I love talking to people about their favourite books, genres and authors. I’ve enjoyed many lively conversations with people about how e-readers have affected their reading habits and whether social media will affect how the next generation reads. (Or doesn’t).

I invite you to take a look at the book signing schedule on my website and, if you’re available I would love to see you pop in to say hello!

In the meantime, Happy Reading!