Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Books on the Shelves, and a Book Report

A big virtual hug to all of y'all! I'm so impressed with what you're managing to do with this blog promo thing. And to prove that the world really is very small, one of the Out of the Blogosphere entries about my book mentioned one of the GBC interviews. The word is definitely out. Too bad we can't say the same for the book itself. It appears that there's a distribution glitch with Barnes & Noble, so the books aren't yet in stores and instead are in a warehouse somewhere.

Okay, Firefly fans, all together now: "It never goes smooth. How come it never goes smooth?" Then again, I'm not sure I have the coping skills for "smooth."

All I can say is keep asking at the stores so they'll know they need to get the books on the shelves pronto when/if they ever get them in, and it does seem like the other stores whose names start with "B" are getting them out there (and in some cases, selling out). I just did an inventory search for B&N and they're saying it's in stock at my local stores, so maybe it's all better now. Plus, my B&N ranking is currently 212, which is higher than I've ever gone before. I'm sure your efforts have a big part in that, so thank you ever so much. Really!

Now, for the latest blog promos: You can read about my up-and-down, crazy writing career. Meanwhile, Sam has some things to say about life and love. And, you can get my opinions on Harry Potter, including who might win in a Mimi vs. Umbridge death match (and I may have to block that forum from my computer if I want to get any work at all done this summer. Soooo tempting .... Must. Discuss. Harry Potter. AAACK!)

And some more GCC stops: Amanda Ashby, the China Dolls blog, Paula Chase, and a scary photo of my office at Nichelle Tramble's blog. I should point out that this photo is several years old and does not incorporate the recent cleaning frenzy.

In other news, even I've become tired of all this "Me! Me! It's all about Meeeeee!" stuff, so I'm going to talk some about books by other people. I've got a couple of very different ones. First, there's Fly Me to the Moon by Alyson Noel, a chick lit novel about the life of a flight attendant. Alyson herself is a former flight attendant, and she swears that she's not making it up, that this is a fairly accurate representation of that life, with all its ups and downs (and I'm not talking about the takeoffs and landings). You'll certainly look at the flight attendants on your next flight in a new way, and you may have an urge to travel after reading this book. Oddly, even though the book stripped away a lot of the glamour of the job, it made me kind of want to do it. The free travel perks may have had something to do with that. Then there's Stolen Magic by MJ Putney -- aka Mary Jo Putney, who made a move from historical romance into fantasy with this book. It's a very romantic fantasy set in Georgian England (which is kind of a fresh fantasy setting), about a secret society of sorcerers who work to protect England. Unfortunately, there's a bad egg in the bunch, and he's out to get the man responsible for enforcing the magical law. I loved the hero of this book (the fact that he's named Simon may have helped there), and it was the kind of love story where you really felt they deserved each other in a good way because she was smart and capable, too. (And I'm not just saying this because Mary Jo has been a huge supporter of my work, giving me cover blurbs and shout outs all the time.)

Tomorrow morning I'm speaking at a career day at a nearby junior high, which should be fun. It would have been beyond my wildest dreams to have had a real, live author show up at a school career day when I was a kid. And then don't forget, those of you in the Dallas area, I've got a booksigning Thursday night at 7 at the Borders at Preston and Royal (and they do show up as having the book in stock. Yay!). I guess since the area stores have books in stock now, I should go out and visit them to sign what they have in stock, but I kind of just want to hang around the house in my "The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth" t-shirt, maybe go to the library to return books. Tomorrow can be my public day.

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