Author Autograph Wishlist

I am from a collecting family. Mom collects Disney related knick-knacks. Little brother is a transformers freak. Me, well, I collect books. The more I love an author, the more I want an autographed copy. I will call up bookstores across the country to have a book shipped to me (J.R. Ward), fly across the country myself (Nalini Singh at RomCon2010), drive three hours (Cathy Clamp at Authors After Dark 2009), or stand in line for 2+ hours at a signing (Nora Roberts at the Columbus Circle Borders, Laurell K. Hamilton at a BEA). These are the lengths I will go to for an autographed copy. I rarely resort to buying on Ebay because you can never know for certain if a signature is for real. In any case, by attending RomCon2010, I got some fabulous autographs last year (Meljean Brook, Jeaniene Frost, Carrie Vaughn, Erin Kellison, Shannon Butcher, and many more).

I don't think I'll be attending RomCon2011 this year (it depends on how the money works out & vacation time), but I definitely want to at least hit RWA's Literacy signing since it's in my neck of the woods this year. The author list won't be posted until April, but they always have a lot of wonderful, wonderful authors. So, since I'm the overly organized type, I wrote up a list of authors that I still need for my collection. I've been adding to it while I type up this entry, so consider it a work in progress! It's also in no particular order, although the top 4 are sorta my holy grails. If you're interested in what I already own, a partial list is available via my LibraryThing catalog.

Author Autograph Wishlist

1. Shelly Laurenston
2. Patricia Briggs
3. Jennifer Crusie
4. Robin D. Owens
5. Jayne Ann Krentz
6. Anne McCaffrey
7. Mercedes Lackey
8. Thea Harrison
9. Larissa Ione
10. Lora Leigh
11. Lynsay Sands
12. S. L. Viehl
13. Cynthia Eden
14. L. J. Smith
15. Sharon Shinn
16. Robin Kaye
17. Eileen Wilks
18. Jean Johnson
19. L. J. McDonald
20. Kresley Cole
21. Victoria Laurie
22. Kelley Armstrong
23. Wen Spencer
24. Ilona Andrews
25. Lynn Kurland
26. Jennifer Ashley
27. Victoria Dahl
28. Christine Warren
29. Stephanie Laurens
30. Shanna Swendson
31. Kathryne Kennedy

I plan on making a concerted effort to cross a number of authors off my list this year. RWA should help, but I'm not leaving it to chance. I'm going to be very organized this year with, like, spreadsheets and everything! Updates to follow.

Behind the Scenes: Booksellers & Authors

I know I have been quite the absentee hostess of late. It turns out that starting a new blog just before the holiday when one works two jobs, one of them retail, is kind of a bad idea.

In any case, I have half a dozen unfinished entries that I hope to bang out shortly. In the meantime, I want to link y'all to today's entry at the Book View Cafe, written by Laura Anne Gilman. I had thought about doing an entry on book signings, but Ms. Gilman offered a great summary on the experience from an author's point of view. I particularly liked this bit:

"If you sell [only] one, and manage to make the staff think you’re just an utter delight, then they will be more likely to hand-sell your book – and your next book, and the book after that."

I cannot stress how true this is. Years ago, there was a local author (not a romance novelist) who so thoroughly pissed us off with his antics, we pretty much banned his book from the store. He used to repeatedly have his family & friends order multiple copies into the store, but then they'd never pick up the books. I would come in and find his book shoved onto displays, replacing titles that were supposed to be in FOS. As a result, we kept one copy on the shelf and sent the rest back. Didn't matter how many arrived in the pallets, we kept one and just threw the rest on the returns desk. Do you think we ever hand-sold his book? Hell no.

To contrast this, I'd like to mention Nelson DeMille. Mr. DeMille was friendly with our old GM and so he used to do signings in the store whenever he released a new book. We used to get a ton of people at these events and Mr. DeMille would stay until every single person got an autographed book. At one signing, he stayed half an hour past closing. He was also always polite and courteous to the staff. Many of the staff started reading him as a result and now when someone asks us for a mystery rec, Mr. DeMille's books are usually at the top of the list.

Motto of this story? Be nice to the people who are the gatekeepers of your books.