Michigan Book Signing Tour: Monday & Tuesday

Yay—the wireless internet service at the hotel has finally been fixed! Of course, I now only have a few minutes before Mary Connealy, MaryLu Tyndall, and I head out to go visit several bookstores at which we aren’t signing this week, to visit with the sales staff and see if they’ll let us sign copies of our books that they have in stock.

Okay, now, for the saga. (There’s always a saga whenever I have to catch a plane to go out of town for “business.”)

I ended up working all day Sunday to get a freelance project finished. After about the fourth or fifth hour on the project, I was exhausted and thought I might just save it, transfer it to my laptop, and work on it once I got to Grand Rapids. But I pushed through and finished it—and good thing, too, since one of the main things I had to do was look up the Bible versed quoted for each day’s devotional, which were quoted from about a dozen different versions—meaning the only way to do that is online. I never would have been able to get it finished by the April 3 deadline if I’d procrastinated!

After getting to sleep early (for me) at 10:30 Sunday night, I was wide awake by about 3 a.m. Monday morning, anticipating my 5 a.m. taxi to take me to the airport. Yes, the blog post from Monday was actually written/posted at 3:30 a.m. That was not your imagination.

At 5:05 a.m., when the cab hadn’t yet arrived, I debated whether or not to give him a few more minutes or call, and decided to call. Good thing I did. Apparently whoever took my information on Friday hadn’t gotten it put into their system properly, because they had no record of a reservation for me—meaning no one was coming. But they immediately dispatched someone who was there by 5:20. I always allow myself way too much time for these early morning flights: I asked for a 5 a.m. pickup for a 6:48 a.m. flight. I know at that time of the day I’m not going to need almost two hours. But I’ve almost missed flights before by not allowing enough time. So I overcompensate. Anyway, the timing worked out perfectly. Naturally, I got a very chatty cab driver who, once he found out I write “clean” fiction (had to go that route because he wasn’t getting the “inspirational” part), wanted to gripe about all the trashy shows his grandkids watch. Thankfully, it’s less than a 10-minute drive to the airport from my house.

The plane was almost 40 minutes late leaving the Nashville airport, due to the need to de-ice the wings, and most of us were nervous that we’d miss our connecting flights in Detroit—especially when we sat on the tarmac for another fifteen or twenty minutes once we actually landed in Detroit, which really only put us getting to the gate about 20 minutes later than our scheduled arrival time. But it’s a huge airport, and I was only going to have about 40 minutes to change planes to begin with. But wouldn’t you know . . . my “connecting” flight happened to be leaving from the very same gate at which I arrived. In other words, I really shouldn’t have had to get off the plane! But even the flight crew had to get out while they “bussed” the plane. And even better, there was a restroom right across the hallway and a “newsstand” shop right beside the gate, so I was able to potty and get a Diet Coke before getting back on the plane.

I arrived in Grand Rapids around 11:30 a.m. local time. As the clerk at the Hampton was checking me in, and I was trying to convince her that the room was supposed to be billed to the credit card with which the room was reserved (by Barbour), the electricity went out. She had to finish checking me in manually, but it all worked out. MaryLu came down and we chatted for about an hour, until the electricity came back on. Mary Connealy arrived, and the three of us went for a late lunch at Longhorn, which is in the parking lot of the Target that’s right across the street from the hotel.

Monday evening’s book signing was quiet—very few customers came into the store. We all got to sign at least one book: fellow ACFWer, and one of my dear, dear friends, Patty Hall came in and brought her copies of our books for us to sign. And I think Christine Lynxwiler sold one book to a store customer. But other than that, we just chatted and entertained ourselves the entire time.

Tuesday afternoon was pretty much the same, even though the store had more customers in and out. None of us sold/signed anything, but I did have a good long conversation with one of the sales people who is now going to be chatting up our books to customers.

Last night, we had a great time. Several people from Barbour arrived in time for the book signing, so it was more like a reception/party than a book signing. I sold one book and signed a couple of others, but pretty much just had a ball hanging out and chatting with the Barbour folks and the few writing friends who came by to support us.

So that’s the update so far.

Nise’ posted photos on her blog from last night’s book signing.