CWA Awards

Just opened my mail and found out 2 of the stories that appear in Lessons In Stalking have been awarded "Certificates Of Excellence" by the International Cat Writers Association (CWA) through their 2005 Communications Contest/Humor Division.  The stories are "Yoga Cat" and "Morning Revelry."  This puts both stories in line (and competing against one another) to win the CWA Muse Medallion. The Muse Medallion is the highest honor awarded by CWA.  I'll learn in November, at our annual conference, if I've won or not.  But I'm extremely pleased to have been awarded the Certificates of Excellence.  There were 3 judges in my category and each story had to average at least a rating of 90 to win.

Lessons In Stalking: Now in Borders

I met with the GM of the Greensboro Borders store today.  She couldn't have been nicer.  They took 5 of my books and, assuming those sell, will order more as needed.  More importantly, having the books in this store will enter me in their system.  So if someone in another state orders my book, they can see that one store already carries it.

The GM did say that the "trick" to being successful in their stores is to have people come in and order the book through the store. They pay attention when they keep getting requests for the same book time and again.  So even though I lose 40% of the top by having my book bought in the store vs. through my website, that's what I'm going to encourage people to do.  I'd rather have the book out and about at bookstores than make an extra $4.

I'll call Barnes & Nobles this week and see if I can get a meeting with their GM as well.

One Fun Thing

Here's a fun tidbit for the day.  My meeting with the GM took place in the Borders Cafe.  The GM was momentarily called away to handle an employee crisis, and some business men at the table next to me motioned to the copies of my book on the table and asked if I'd wrote it.  When I said yes, another man sitting at a different table perked up and said he would like to buy a copy.  So I sold a copy of the book and the two business men took a stack of my bookmarks and said they had places where they could hand them out.  Selling the book on the spot like that really made my day (Thanks, Reginald!).

I sent e-mails out to friends/family yesterday, letting everyone know the book was here.  One of the people I sent the e-mail to is the "class coordinator" for my high school, and she forwarded the e-mail to everyone in my graduating class that she had e-mail addresses for.  I've been getting a few e-mails here and there from people I haven't seen or heard from in 17 years.  (AACK!  17 years.  No way am I that old!)  I love hearing from them.  I've even heard from a few people that I really had little to no connection with, but they just wrote to say they thought it was great about the book.

People are wonderful.  I am so lucky to have crossed paths with so many exceptional people in my life.

Book Signing at The Fat Cat

I had my spur-of-the-moment book signing yesterday at The Fat Cat art gallery.  It was a great kick-off to what will hopefully be a number of equally successful future signings. 

The Fat Cat trunk show ran from 10-4, but I  taught a public speaking course that morning in Greensboro and so couldn't arrive until 2.  I dropped the books off on Friday, pre-signing most of them.  When I walked in the Fat Cat, I found my book table at the front of the room with a cute display of books and the sign you see to the left.

Better still, Gwenn, the owner, came up to me and said, "A customer bought this book yesterday after you dropped them off.  She called and left a message here at midnight saying this was a 'laugh-out-loud funny book' and she wanted to be put on the notification list for your next book."

Well!  It's hard to start the day off better than that.  And Gwenn was awesome, telling everyone who walked in the door the story and that "you need to buy Dena's cat book."

It was little harder than I thought it would be to sell myself and the book.  It feels odd to talk about how great your work is.  What I found worked best was to give customers some space.  I stood back a little ways from the table and let them read the back cover and flip through the book.  Then I'd approach and say something like, "Do you have cats?" and introduce myself as the author.  It's a delicate balance between encouraging conversation yet not making people feel guilty if they don't buy your book.

I'm on the right track with my idea to start a page on this blog for the stories and pics of reader's cats.  I heard so many great cat stories yesterday from people--I'm going to have to start bringing my laptop with me to capture them on the spot.

All told, it was a successful day.  I sold 19 books, which, from my reading about book signings, is a decent number.  We had a sci-fi author come speak to us once at our writer's group and he said he thought it was a good day if he sold 8 books at a signing.  I think that's a low number, but I'm still pleased with my sales, especially considering I did no advertising that I'd be at the event.  Again, I owe a huge debt of thanks to Gwenn and The Fat Cat.  She just went all out to make the day a success for me. (The side photo is a picture of part of the inside of the gallery).

I had a few more surprises yesterday.  My new writing buddy, Bernie, showed up unexpectedly, which was a huge treat.  She lives a good ways off,  so I was especially touched she made the drive in to see me. 

My neighbor and owner of Madison Dry Goods, Richard Miller, also stopped by for some signed copies.  

So yesterday was a very, very happy day.  I'm conducting a public workshop for writers today in Greensboro at the public library from 2:30-4pm, and hope to sell a few more copies there as well.  I need to start carrying around change with me--especially nickels! 

Today I'm focusing on sending out review copies, as well as copies to those individuals who "blurbed" my book for me.

Happy Stalking,

Dena

Meet Linda, my illustrator

To continue the "journey of the book," we're now up to this morning (Friday) in time.  I met my illustrator, Linda Santell, halfway between our homes so I could do a handoff of the books to her.  Her town of Reidsville is having a festival this Saturday and Linda is setting up a display of the books in her shop.

Here I am handing the books to Linda, who, as you can see, if quite thrilled to receive them.  We joked it was like a covert drug operation.  Our cars pulled up alongside one another as we made the exchange.  We did actually make it out of our cars to hug and congratulate one another, but this is the actual first handoff of the books.

I signed all the books I gave to Linda and handwriting lessons are going to be in my near future. =)

The really fun news about the book is that last night the owner of The Fat Cat , an art gallery here in Madison, called and said she wanted me to do an author signing this weekend at her Fall Trunk & Fashion Show.  I dropped off 25 books there this morning and will be there at 100 W. Murphy Street in Madison tomorrow, Saturday the 8th, from 2-4 PM.

My excitement over the book is growing, the more people I run into.  I am extremely blessed to be surrounded, literally surrounded, with caring, supportive people.  Not just friends and family, but neighbors, store owners, editors...the list goes on.  People are so happy for me and I'm touched by that.  I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's in the world.