Friday, June 26, 2009

I *Heart* Libraries

I've always been a library person. The weekly trip to the library to check out a new stack of books was one of my favorite activities as a kid, and things haven't changed much since then. I still hit the local libary on a regular basis, and leave with a pile of books each time. Except now, I can add my kids' choices to my own. It adds up to a heck of a lot of reading material.


And that's fine by me. I'm a very fast reader - so fast, in fact, that if I didn't have a library habit, I'd spend the majority of my paycheck on books. I prefer using the library to used bookstores because I know that my checking-out habits encourage the powers that be to order more romance books for the system, which results in more royalties to authors. I also request books and authors all the time -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but it's always worth a try.

So I was thrilled to discover that my local library system had ordered my newest print title, Lessons Learned, for circulation. When it first came out, I'd considered donating a copy, but the librarian told me it would just be put in the Friends of the Library sale because of the cost of entering it in the system. And since it's small press, I thought the chances of seeing it on the shelves was slim to none.

I was wrong.

Somehow, somewhere, Lessons Learned ended up on their radar, and there are now four copies in circulation. And that thrilled me as much as getting my first author copies did.

I'm in the library. And dang, it feels good!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is so cool! Congrats! :D

Diane Craver said...

Kate,
That's so cool about your book being in your library. I bet it will be checked out constantly.

Our governor wants to close a lot of our libraries to save money. I can't believe it. I never thought this would happen and hope it doesn't.

Stacy~ said...

Hey that's awesome! Libraries are such a safe haven for readers, and lots of gems to be found. How cool your book is one of them :)

Kate Davies said...

Thanks, guys!

I still get a little giddy at the thought of other people checking my book out of the library. Almost as exciting as that first book on the store shelf (virtual or otherwise).

There's even a website that searches library online catalogs and can tell you what libraries have a specific book, how many copies, and how many are checked out at any given time. It's kinda addictive.

Diane, I'm with you on the library closure issue. In this economy, we need libraries *more*, not less.