How It's Going
It's been a while! But I wanted to report on how the launch of Yuppie is going, mostly because this was the first "virtual" launch I've done. And by virtual, I don't even mean that I organized some sort of Zoom-esque book reading, because that sounded awful. And complicated. So my traditional book signing invites that get mailed out were replaced by general announcements, giving readers the chance to order autographed copies of Yuppie that would ship directly to them.
I have to say, it's been quite delightful to see the names come across of books for me to sign, and I've enjoyed the process of signing, packing, and shipping them all over the land. And really, I mean it. I've shipped books to New York, Ohio, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Indiana, Texas, Utah, Idaho, Canada, New Jersey, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington DC, Virginia, and, of course, many to various California locations. I've become such a frequent visitor at the post office that they know me if not by name, then by the blue Scotch shipping tape I wrap all the books in. "Do you WRITE books?" one of the employees finally asked me. "Because I see your stuff everywhere," he continued, referring to the signature blue wrapping. "Yes!" I replied. "Yes I do!"
Of course, I should mention that getting people to order this way (by actually taking action to request their signed copies) has been harder than I thought, meaning less people have done it than I hoped. I figured placing an order on a computer is much easier than driving to an event and sitting through a reading and waiting in line, but there's something about those events, I guess. Being there, taking your friends with you, seeing the author, going to lunch after and making a day of it, etc. And once at an event, you have a pretty captive audience, in that they're all going to buy books. So that's been a bit disappointing. But considering how much of an author's sales that book stores take after a signing, financially I've ended up ahead of where I would normally be at this point. So it's all good, and overall it's been a fun change-up to the way I usually launch books.
If you haven't ordered your autographed copy yet, you most definitely still can! There's some blue Scotch shipping wrap with your name on it. (And with a few more orders, I think I just might get my own parking space at the post office.)