The Tour and the Lists

The tour began on March 31 at BN in Arboretum at 5:00 pm. We came in a little early, were led to the back room, and shortly after they brought us out. We follow the nice bookseller to the signing space and see 200 people. And they all go, “Yay!” except that there is 200 of them and it sounds more like, “Rawr!”

We have a short Q&A, we got to signing, and we sign until 10:30 or so. Author math: 1 new book plus 3 books from home = 4 signatures x 200 = 800 signatures. 500 signatures is about 3 hours. We have an awesome time, and then the readers leave and we stay and sign stock. And more stock. And more stock.

We finally get through it and call our Uber, and it takes us home. We land, eat something – I am very proud of myself for ordering takeout to be delivered with perfect timing – it was left by the door by the time we arrived but it did not sit long enough for racoons to steal it. We eat, finish packing in a tired stupor, and pass out for about 4 hours.

We get up at 5:00 am, and by 5:30 am we are on the way to the airport with our bags and our airline apps. We get there, check in the bags, go through TSA Precheck and they send me right back. My TSA precheck is not there. It turned out that there was a typo in my KTN, the frequent flier number. Now that I know about it, I manually fix it everywhere.

We grab some kind of weird breakfast – airport food is always a little sus – and get on a plane. We land in Minneapolis at 12:30 pm. We get to the hotel, which is amazing. It’s called the Graduate and it is straight out of a Dark Academia novel. It’s right by University of Minnesota and there are lounge spaces and long, ancient looking tables everywhere. The students use it as a secondary Student Center. I stole pictures for you from their website.

It would be an amazing event space. Like I want to write a dark academia novel so we can have the book release party there.

We drop our bags off and get an Uber to Tropes and Trifles. The city is under siege. Every house and business along the road has signs ICE OUT and WE LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS. Minneapolis’ community game is strong. Deepest respect.

I will say that if you would like to visit, do not hesitate. We felt safe, and Tropes and Trifles takes great care of their visitors.

We arrive to the store about 2:45 pm and we are shown to the table filled with books. We keep signing but somehow the boxes keep coming.

We also meet a very good boy.

We presign the books until about 5:00 pm, when we get a little break to grab a bite. The only options around Tropes and Trifles were a BBQ restaurant and a bakery, so we grab an uber back to the hotel and eat at their restaurant. Nothing wrong with a BBQ, but for a signing event, you want something light.

We eat quickly, grab an uber, and arrive to the signing venue, which takes place in this amazing church. Except that there is no table. Usually there is a table, but this time, there are only chairs.

I have a pantsuit that only looks good when I am standing or half hidden behind the table. Had I know this, I would’ve worn a dress. I went with the suit because an ice storm was coming and it was cold. More on that later.

The signing starts and again, there are many people. We do a short Q&A and at some point, I do a Vanna White impression with a giant cover. Except I am not quite that fabulous, hehe. The session goes well, we switch to the signing, and we sign. And sign. Tropes and Trifles has a 6 book limit, so the presigned hardcover plus up to 6 books from home.

It takes a little bit, and we get everyone through, and arrive to the hotel around 11:00 pm. We grab a little sleep, get up at 5:00 am, and by 6:20 am, we are at the airport. We are due to fly to Chicago, where we need to catch a connecting flight to Lexington.

Remember the ice storm? It is spreading across the Midwest. Chicago is not accepting planes. The flight is delayed. We sit. We wait. We board. We sit. We wait. We deplane with our bags. We sit. We wait.

At this point I call Jocelyn, who is Tor’s publicist, and explain that there is no way we are connecting in Chicago. She magically manages to rebook us on a later flight. We should be getting into Charlotte at 5:00 pm now. The signing is at 7:00 pm. Plenty of time.

We sit. We wait.

We board. The plane is de-iced. We wait. We wait.

We finally take off.

We land in Chicago, speed march to the right gate, and stop. The domino effect is in full force. Our connecting flight is now delayed by two hours.

More texting to Jocelyn, who connects to Joseph-Beth, and the store graciously agrees to move the event to 8:30 pm. We had an unprecedented level of support for this. Thank you so much to everyone involved.

I check the email, and see a message from Mod R, which says, “Everything is fine,” which is usually a code for “The sky has fallen, but Mod R picked it up and put it back.” The website had crashed, and she had to contact the host support, who got it fixed in record time. I thank her and ask her to post the delay announcement.

We sit. We wait. We talk to other people who are sitting and waiting. We look for some place to charge things. We sit.

Finally we board and fly to Lexington. We land at 8:10 pm, grab our bags, and call an Uber, except the uber driver is 12 miles away. What? So, we cancel the uber and grab a taxi, and it takes us to Joseph-Beth. We are reasonably sure that everyone has likely left by now.

We make it to the store at 8:30 pm. Joseph-Beth – a beautiful store, by the way, and if you have a chance, you absolutely should visit – has two floors of books. As we are riding the escalator up in our travel clothes with our bags, we hear the “Yay-Rawr!”

Nobody left. We go straight into Q&A, and there are pictures of us with readers where Gordon looks amazing, because he always does, and I am wearing upscale sweatpants and a T-shirt that says “Easily Distracted By Dogs.” Sorry. It couldn’t be helped.

We get through the line – one person flew in from Germany, omg – and by that point it’s 11:30 pm and there is a lot of stock. The store graciously offers to stay with us until we sign it all, but we feel bad about keeping everyone late, so we agree to come back in the morning.

We get to Origin hotel, which is also gorgeous, fall on our faces, and fall asleep.

We are up at 6:00 am, we grab breakfast. Breakfast at the Origin in Lexington is a religious experience. Like it is so delicious, and it looks like one of those highly edited food shots. It was perfect. By 7:30 am we are in an uber and on the way to the store.

We get there, we are let in, and we sign stock. And we sign. And we sign. At 9:15 am, we had to leave for the airport, but we got through all of This Kingdom stock and we will be sending bookplates to Joseph-Beth for the rest.

We get to the airport, and the plane is delayed. We wait, we wait, we wait, we we board the plane, and then we are finally in Baltimore. As we are going to get our bags, Jeaniene Frost, who is co-signing with us, is texting me wanting to know if we are alive. I confirm that we are alive and we agree to meet for dinner. It is Gordon’s birthday.

We end up at a Brazilian steakhouse. But this point I am so tired of eating highly fried and rich food, that I find some marinated eggplant on the salad bar and I eat it like there is no tomorrow. Midway through dinner, a woman comes over and gives us this hesitant look.

Me: Hello.

She: ILOVEYOURBOOKS.

We took lovely pictures, chatted, and it was a very cute moment. She couldn’t get a ticket to the signing because it was sold out and ended up at the restaurant by pure chance. Serendipity. On tour all of our time belongs to the readers and book stores, and all of us are very glad that we were able to meet her.

The next day, we make a quick excursion to Collector Corner and Black Sheep Yarn Store, where I buy yarn I do not need. Black Sheep Yarn store is lovely and they tried very hard to explain their return policy to me. Returning yarn. Heh.

We meet with Jeaniene and her sister for a quick brunch, get back to the hotel, change clothes and arrive to the BN. We are welcomed, led to the back room, and then brought out.

No table. Oh, and it’s worse. It’s not chairs. It’s tall bar stools. Note to self: dresses next time.

We have a ton of people again, everyone is asking questions, I scroll through Maggie 2 to prove that it existed. Jeaniene Frost is MC’ing like there is no tomorrow, and then we all transition to the signing.

There were some heavy moments at this signing and some happy moments. At one point someone accidentally grabbed my phone instead of theirs, and somehow took a bunch of pictures – I must’ve happened to unlock it just before – and then apologized profusely. I texted the pictures back and took a photo for posterity. Hehe.

We signed until just after 9:00 pm, and as soon as we finished, the lights went out, and we had to go. We got back to the hotel, fell on our faces, and slept until 4:00 am, at which point the uber came to pick us up so we can be at the airport in time. We got there at 5:00, gave them our bags, somehow dragged ourselves through the security and to our gate, waited again, got on a plane, flew, landed, ubered, and at noon walked through the door of our house.

We put the bags aside, changed clothes, sat on the couch, and fell asleep until 4:00 pm, when it was time to pick up the dogs from boarding.

It was an amazing tour! We got to meet so many people. Thank you for all of the smiles and the old, well-loved books. It was our privilege to spend time with you!

And now I have the grand announcement. Ta-da!

Here we go:

• #9 New York Times Bestseller in Hardcover and Ebook
• #10 New Times Bestseller in Hardcover
• #14 USA Today Bestseller (We have #14 bestselling book out all books in US)
• #2 Sunday Times Bestseller in UK – huge thank you to Waterstones
• #6 Independent Books Store Bestseller

And we have regional lists:

• #13 North California Independent Bookstore Alliance
• #14 Southern Independent Bookstore Alliance
• #7 Mountains and Plains Independent Bookseller Association
• #8 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association
• #9 Great Lakes Independent Bookseller Association

We haven’t had a true hardcover edition since Magic Triumphs. Hidden Legacy had very tiny hardcover runs, primarily aimed at libraries. We are coming back from an almost 4 year traditional hiatus (Ruby Fever came out in 08/2022.)

I love Maggie, but I also understand that it is a dense book with a lot of worldbuilding. It is not a YA/NA, it is not that spicy, and it is in a genre largely unknown to Western audiences. Books like that don’t usually hit the lists unless they have a film or TV tie ins. Tor had gone above and beyond to promote it, but between the long break in our publishing career, the hardcover price, and writing in a different genre, I didn’t expect any fireworks.

This is unbelievably amazing. I was shocked. Absolutely shocked. How did this even happen?

We worked so hard on this book, and right now all of it seems worth it.

Thank you.

You are the best.