Tuesday night's group signing at the Cary Barnes & Noble

Tuesday night, I joined four other local SF and fantasy authors--David Drake, Kelly Gay, Lisa Shearin, and James Maxey--in what has become an annual event, our group panel discussion and signing at the Cary Barnes and Noble. All of us had books that had recently appeared, and the store had them all in stock, so the timing of the event was great. I even got to see for the first time the paperback version of The Wild Side.

As usual, the crowd, which numbered something around 35 people, was a nice size, and the people acted interested and asked good questions.

We began by introducing ourselves and our most recent books. Here I am showing off (and flogging) No Going Back, whose lovely John Picacio cover always makes a great first impression.

As always, click on a photo to see a larger image. All photos courtesy of Gina.

After that brief bit of plugging, Linda Maloof and her fine Barnes and Noble team asked the audience for questions. Folks asked us about everything from Ray Bradbury to books we'd recommend, and from our writing processes to how much we altered our work to try to hit commercial demands. (In my case, the answer to that last question was a resounding "Never!" and then a bit of a rant.)

Here we all are watching James as he responds to a question.

I must be answering something in this next photo, but I appear to be trying to cast a spell on someone.

I really did, by the way, have a name sheet in front of me, or at least I think I did, but in all these shots I appear to be sitting in front of Lisa's. Sorry about that.

After we finished, we all signed books for those who bought them and generally hung out and chatted. I was pleased to see the store sold out of its (admittedly small number of) copies of both No Going Back and Children No More. Here's the audience dispersing as we moved into that phase of the evening.

My thanks again to Linda and her team. They did a great job with the event, and I look forward to repeating it next year.

Quick thoughts on Tuesday night's Barnes & Noble gig

(all photos courtesy of Gina)


When you're on a panel, it's often difficult to assess your audience's honest reaction, so I can say only that it seems to me that Tuesday night's Barnes & Noble event went well. (Of course, I'd prefer they spell my name correctly, but I'm willing to trade that for having a lot of my books on hand, which the store did.)

This is the fourth year we've done this event, so it now operates on a predictable pattern. We introduce ourselves and say what we write. One of our gracious hosts asks the audience for questions. No one offers any. The host asks a question. We each answer it. The audience warms up and start asking questions, and then we're off.


Tonight's queries addressed such topics as genre boundaries, the effects of ebooks on writers, writing processes, and so on. Not all of our answers were the same, but on balance they were generally more similar than different.

After the Q&A period, folks bought books and had us sign them.


In this photo, the signing has just begun--a moment that is easy to spot because it's the one time when Dave does not have the most people waiting on him.

Afterward, a group of us, mostly family, headed across the parking lot for dinner.

They've already asked us back for next year, and I expect we'll probably be there. As long as the others are game, I am.

If you're not busy Tuesday night (June 14)

In what has become something of a tradition, tomorrow night, Tuesday, June 14, I will join several other local SF writers in a group Q&A/signing session at 7:00 p.m. at the Cary Barnes & Noble. If you're not doing anything else then, drop by, chat with us, maybe buy a few books, and have a good time.

Our group started at four but now has grown to five: David Drake, Kelly Gay, James Maxey, Lisa Shearin, and I. The range of the fiction we write is fairly broad, but it all falls somewhere in the greater SF/fantasy realm.

Past discussions have ventured over a broad array of topics, including literary themes, writing processes, violence in fiction, and of course a significant number of fun but silly questions. Plus, there's always the chance that Dave (or occasionally I) will burst into an obscenity while holding a microphone in a busy suburban bookstore!

If you're not busy, come on by.

About the signing the other night

It went pretty well. I couldn't get a firm fix on the size of the crowd, but I'm pretty sure it topped fifty folks, people who braved a dark and stormy night (really) to come see us yak. Linda Maloof, the Community Relations Manager for this B&N and the organizer of the event, kicked us off with a question from her podium. We each answered it, and then Linda opened the floor to audience questions.

As part of our introductory answers, we each had the opportunity to flog our current works. I hate posting pictures of myself, but I've taken enough grief for not doing so that I'll put up one this time. In it, I'm standing and explaining about my project to raise money to help child soldiers and other children affected by war. (If you missed that post, I am donating 100% of the money I make from the sales of the hardback of Children No More to Falling Whistles, an organization that helps such children.)

The thing I'm holding is a mock-up of the final dust jacket of the book. If you look closely, you can see the gold whistle on its back; I'm wearing that same whistle.

To my surprise, the event lasted over two hours, and it could have gone longer; the audience was great. After it ended, we signed books and then visited in small groups for another half hour before finally dispersing.

All in all, it was a pleasant evening with a vastly better turn-out than I had expected. I thank all who attended.


(pictures courtesy of Gina)

Yesterday's signing

was both successful and fun. As you can see in this photo, which like all the others here is courtesy of Gina, we even had our own fancy poster in the window. Pretty cool.

We also had a pretty large audience, right around 40 folks, which was also quite cool. Linda and Buck and Butch of the Cary Barnes & Noble did a great job making the event happen, and we owe them a huge thanks. I worked off some of my debt by buying eight books and a magazine as I was scurrying off to dinner.







Here's the whole writer gang, resplendent behind our table and with our store-supplied microphone. In case you don't recognize us, from left to right we are Dave, me, James, and Lisa.






For those who want solo shots, here's Dave


















and Lisa






















and James, all in glorious writerly action.













I, on the other hand, spent most of the panel trying to perfect my imitation of a cat that has just awakened to find its tongue stuck between its lips and a temptingly tasty microphone right in front of its face and in desperate need of licking.

No, I did not lick the microphone; we had to share, so that would have been wrong.

But, as you can see from the look on my face, I did consider it.

You can pre-order Overthrowing Heaven on Amazon!

My friend Lynn told me about this. Check it out: You can pre-order Overthrowing Heaven here.

Not one to play favorites, I checked Barnes and Noble, and they don't yet offer it.

I also went to the Borders site, and that was a weird experience. You can search for the book and will get this screen, which claims to let you pre-order my as yet not finished novel, but clicking the pre-order button does nothing. Unfortunate.

Now that the book is available, I have a simple plan: If each person reading this entry gets a thousand of his or her closest friends / co-workers / students / enemies / dead people with active credit cards to pre-order the book, I might make a bestseller list. I would then do the happy dance on video. Isn't that a great deal?

Seriously, I know I shouldn't even pay attention to little things like this, and I do try to avoid them, but the moment I know they're out there, I obsess over them. What a big baby.

On that note, I will turn away from crass commercialism and focus again on the part of the whole process I can currently control: Finishing the book!

Tonight's signing

was, at least in my experience, pretty darn successful. Between the three writers we brought a total of 11 friends, but the rest of the audience outnumbered us and our friends. The panel discussion ran the full hour, and the audience grew over time--which is definitely an improvement over shrinking while you speak. My fellow panelists, Lisa Shearin (who really made this happen) and James Maxey, were entertaining and gracious. The Barnes and Noble folks were as nice as could be and had a lot of our books in stock. The audience members asked good questions and seemed genuinely interested in the answers. My friend and the senior SF writer in the area, David Drake, showed up from Chatham County and provided interesting commentary.

I think everyone there had a good time.

I don't know how many books the Cary Barnes & Noble sold, and that is the ultimate measure of the success of any such event, but I'm hoping it's a decent number.

After the event, the 11 of us in the writers and friends/families group retired to Gypsy's Shiny Diner for dinner and further conversation. No one booth there could hold 11 people, so we split up, but we all still managed to chat a reasonable amount.

I had a good time and would definitely do other signings with these folks. Maybe next year, when we'll all have new books on the stands.

Doing a signing tomorrow: come on by!

At 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 9, 2008, which is tomorrow to me and today to most of you reading this, I'll be signing at the Cary Barnes & Noble with local fantasy writers Lisa Shearin and James Maxey. Lisa and I had lunch once, and she was a fellow Compton Crook Award nominee. She's also the one of us who deserves the credit for making this happen. I haven't met James, but I look forward to doing so.

If you're in the area, feel free to drop by, chat, and even buy books (though that is, of course, optional, it's always in good taste at a signing).

I should also mention why I consider Tuesday to be tomorrow given that my computer claims that it is 1:16 a.m. on Tuesday. The simple answer is this: tomorrow doesn't start until I go to bed and then get up for the day. Thus, if I pull an all-nighter, a whole day never gets to be.

Some of you may view this as a very Mark-centric view of time, but fortunately for me, I'm Mark, so it all works out.

I hope to see some folks tomorrow. Tonight, I have more of Overthrowing Heaven to write.