Red-Letter Day

Last weekend we headed north for a day of shopping, park-going, and generally hanging out as a family. I decided to take a side trip to a couple of bookstores, one I'd never been to and one I hadn't checked out in a long time. See, a fellow Samhain author was collecting data from anyone interested in seeing how many Samhain titles are on the shelves at various stores. It's a highly unscientific survey, but fun to look for that familiar red moon logo on the spine.

So I beelined straight to romance in the first store. Small romance section, smaller trade paperback romance subsection. Fewer Samhain titles than I'd seen even in the closest local bookstore, which isn't known for having a lot. Also a bit surprising because I knew the mall Waldenbooks less than a mile away has a huge selection of Samhain titles in their truly impressive romance section.

Twenty miles down the road we stopped at another Borders. I wandered through the romance section, heading for the trade paperback shelves with my pen and whatever receipts I could scrounge from my purse. (You'd think I'd be more prepared for situations like this, being a writer and all. You'd be wrong.)

Midway down the second shelf I started to grin. There, in glorious technicolor, was Tease Me, Please Me.

Now, this wasn't the first time I'd seen TMPM on a bookstore shelf. However, it was the first time I'd seen it without having lobbied for it first, either by participating in a signing or requesting that the store stock it.

I'm not really a local author -- I live about an hour south of this particular store. I didn't ask them to put a copy on the shelves. But there it was, looking SO pretty. :)

I finished my task and returned to the "D"s, taking TMPM off the shelf and carrying it to the information desk. I told the nice woman behind the counter that I was the author and asked if it would be okay if I signed it, since I didn't want her to think I was defacing store property. Turns out she's a big romance fan -- even attended an RT convention years ago -- and was pretty darn excited for me, too. We even got around the pesky "need to see ID" rule thanks to the promo postcard I happened to have in my purse (ah, the perils of having a pen name). So I signed it, she slapped a signed by author sticker on it, and it went back on the shelf.

I don't think I stopped smiling for the rest of the night.