I am starting to feel a bit like a politician running for office. I now have a stump speech that I can access effortlessly at these readings. I have the 20 second spiel, the 20 sentence spiel, the 20 minute spiel, and every length spiel in between. I have a pocket full of self-deprecating and self-promotional one-liners at my disposal to use when signing, spieling, shaking, or charming. I’ve been going into bookstores, introducing myself, and leaving behind cards and reading copies.

I am raising awareness, spreading the word, and tiring myself out as I unabashedly campaign for this book. After writing a novel about a political campaign, I find it amusing and slightly ironic to be in this position. It’s fun. It’s exhausting. And, it’s what I have to do.

This bird played a terribly small role in my last two days at BookExpo America. In fact, it played no role at all. It was hanging out in the booth of some veterinary-themed publisher that I happened to walk by. I took its picture because I thought it looked cool. If I can think of some way to make it relevant to this blog post on some metaphoric level, I shall, but for now, dear reader, you will have to content yourself with starting this dispatch on a red herring (or a black toucan, as it were).

BEA rocked. For those who don’t know, BookExpo America is this enormous trade show for the publishing industry that was held this year at the LA Convention Center. And I went. Coolness.

It was an intense two days (I went just for Friday and Saturday). I schmoozed my heart out, got lots of free books, walked till my feet were falling off, and gave away a million business cards. On Friday, I was interviewed for a short podcast, which went well, and then, I had a half-hour book signing.

The signing was lots of fun. There were about 25-30 tables lined up in the signing hall. Some, for the big authors, had huge lines. Some, for the unknown folks, had no line. While there was never a huge line for me, I did have a steady flow of people for pretty much the entire half-hour, and we went through 3 boxes of books. It was a real trip meeting all the strangers who came to my table and knowing that many of them would actually be reading my book. Even knowing that some of them would only turn around and try to sell the book on eBay still filled me with a certain kind of warmth. Good times.

After the signing, Ben, the William Morrow publicity dude who had been assigned to look after me, helped me carry two of the three remaining book boxes the length of the Convention Center, back to the Harper Collins booth. I would later return for the third. As I said, lots of walking. I signed these other three boxes later in the day at the Harper Collins booth, and half of those went while I was standing there. The rest were all gone by first thing Saturday morning, and my only regret was that we didn’t have more to give away.

Here are some highlights from the rest of the weekend:

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