BookSense Advance Access Program

My friends Pam & Michael Cable alerted me to a wonderful little gem of a program called the BookSense Advance Access Program. Here's a description pulled from their website:

Several times each month, we email over 1,000 independent booksellers with news of galleys, reading copies or finished books that you are offering for review. After receiving a free review copy from you, stores will read and decide whether to carry the title, and hopefully even nominate it for the Book Sense List. We make no promises, but the Advance Access program has proven to be a very effective way to get the word out about your titles. Stores will email you directly, and generally, you can expect requests from 25-50 booksellers. The stores do know that it is "first come/first served," but the more booksellers you can provide copies for, the better, of course.

 The fee is $50 and the mailing with Lessons In Stalking listed went out on Monday, February 6th.  Since then, I've had 15 independent booksellers request my books.  Requests have come from Arizona, Iowa, Alaska, Maine, California, New York and--my coup of the day--the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge Massachusetts. 

At this point, it's just me sending them a free review copy of my book.  But that has several things going for it.  One, they've requested it, so it's not like a blind mass mailing where I hope they look at it.  Two, in their e-mails requesting the book, several bookstore owners already said, "Oh, this looks like a staff pick book for us" or "Our customers love cats.  We can't wait to receive your book."  So I'm extremely hopeful sales will be forthcoming.  The final benefit is I would MUCH rather be in small independent bookstores where owners know my book and can talk about it to clients vs. the major chains where it would just get shoved on a shelf and lost.

So all in all, I'm feeling very satisfied I've gotten my $50 worth of value from the program. I stated I was willing to send out up to 50 free review copies, so I'm hoping the requests keep flowing in.  And if anyone needs to find my book in the upcoming months, I'll  direct you to the "Ha-vad" bookstore.

A Bump In The Road

I was manic this morning.  Wednesdays are my crunch day.  Today I had a networking meeting from 7:15-8:45, writer's group from 9-11:40, Toastmasters from Noon - 1, met with 2 fabulous women I'm mentoring from 1:30-2:30, and then home to clean up for my writers critique group (Potter's Plotters?) meeting here tonight.

So I flew out the door at 6:20 am, 5 minutes later than I planned on leaving, plus I had to let my windshield defrost. Morning traffic into Greensboro can back up so I wanted to give myself time, especially as this is the Networking group I was late for the one time and  must now never, ever be late for again.  So I'm haulin' butt through traffic, going faster than I should, cutting in lanes, and just feeling harried to get there on time (which to me, means early).

I make it to my meeting with 10 minutes to spare.  But we let out late,  so I again found myself zooming through traffic, scowling at people going a mile or two under the speed limit and just not practicing safe driving skills.

I pull into the parking lot across from the Green Bean at 9:03 and rejoice--the first slot is empty.  Lucky me.  So I turn my car in and hear a scrapping sound. Crap. I misjudged the distance and hit the bumper of the green Volvo station wagon beside me.

I get out and look at the bumper.  I can't find a mark.  Yippee!  Then I look at my front bumper.  It's not bad, but I obviously scraped something, so I take a closer look at the Volvo's bumper.  Yes, there it is.  Some scratches along the lower portion.  I grab a piece of paper and write my name, number, e-mail, put the date and time and place it on the windshield asking them to please call me.  I haven't heard yet, but it's only 4 pm so they may just not be home yet. 

I take that whole episode as a warning from the Universe to SLOW DOWN.  I got lucky I just bumped an empty car versus something more serious happening on the road at 55 mph.  I was pushing the clock to get to my 1:30 meeting but made myself SLOW DOWN and flow with traffic.  A five-minute lateness would not kill me. And I ended up pulling in right at 1:30, anyway.

Interestingly, the speaker I evaluated at my Toastmasters meeting today gave a speech on how she finally overcame her habit of always being tardy.  She gave the real life example of how when she was young, she actually got locked in the K-Mart where she worked not once but three times because she didn't make it outside in time and no one realized she was still there.

At one point she asked us, "Who here is the person who is always early and finds it unthinkable to be late?" About 6 of us raised our hands.  I may have imagined it, but I swear tshe looked right at me as she said, "I could have guessed those."

So my challenge is to learn not necessarily not to be prompt (perish the thought) but more not to have a cow if circumstances dictate that I be a few minutes late.  Better late and uninjured than on-time with a criminal record. Right? 

Dharma & Greg and Too Many Eggs?

I had the most frightening experience tonight.  Have you ever seen the TV sitcom called Dharma & Greg? It was cancelled I don't know how many moons ago and started Jenna Elfman as a spacy new age type woman married to a Republican lawyer.  I never watched the show while it ran. But for some reason, flipping through channels tonight, I found an episode of it and decided to watch.  And it wasn't good.  But it was a "To Be Continued..." episode and darn if the continuation didn't come on right after it.  So I watched that.  Only it was a "To Be Continued..." episode and Dharma & Greg were in a terrible car wreck so I tuned in to make sure everything was okay.  So I spent an hour and half of my precious time on this Earth watching 3 poorly written and badly acted "Dharma & Greg episodes."  Isn't there some sort of AA program for people like me with these sort of fixation addictions? Very, very frightening.

I think it was because of the eggs.  I ate way too many eggs today.  We had a dozen  plus eggs set to expire at the end of this week so yesterday I made egg salad (8 eggs) and also a salmon-cheddar bake (6 eggs).   I had some egg salad for lunch and the salmon bake for dinner.  That's a whole lotta eggs.   I still have a lot of both left over but I don't think I'll feel like eating either tomorrow.

And Blair can't eat them.  Poor guy is still sick and actually came home from the office today.  That's like a sign of the Apocalypse.  Blair is 38 and has NEVER missed a day of work.  N-E-V-E-R.  He's occasionally acquiesced to come home early if he wasn't feeling well, "early" meaning 3 or 4  in the afternoon. And he technically didn't miss work today because he left the house at 7, drove 40 minutes, managed to stay upright at his desk for about an hour, then drove home.  He's been in bed all day.  And unlike me, who is all about the pampering when I'm sick (didn't see that one coming, did you?), Blair just wants to be left alone.  Which makes it both easy and hard to care for him.

Maybe I'll roll the TV in there and see if any episode of Dharma & Greg will cheer him up.  Couldn't hurt? 

WalMart is Wal-Boring

And now for a lighter change of pace...

I can tell a lead a rural existence because folks in these here parts, including myself, have been mighty excited these past few months as we've anticipated the grand opening of the Super WalMart, just a town over from where I live.  I've been counting down the days not because I'm a huge WalMart fan (Target is my discount store of choice), but because I looked forward to no longer needing to drive the 25 minutes we currently do to our grocery store.  Fresh fruits and vegetables and anything remotely resembling a soy-burger product is not to be found in my little town, so we make the hike to a Lowe's Foods in Oak Ridge every Sunday.

So it was with baited breath that I drove the 8 miles this morning to the newly opened Wal-Mart.  Even the bored looking greeting girl couldn't dissuade me.  WalMart is huge!  I couldn't wait to see all the new vegetarian products on the market that I probably didn't even know about. I grabbed a shopping cart big enough to tote around four full-grown men and headed into the aisles.

My first inkling something was off was in the fruit and veggie aisle.  While the produce looked good, there wasn't as much of it as I thought there would be.  Like all Americans, I like to pick over and reject approximately 200 of the same item before finding the one green or red bell pepper that meets my standards.  But I found it odd that there was only pre-packaged celery and the green onions came in a reusable zip-lock bag.

Then there were the concrete floors.  I know it's a cost-saving measure, but yecch.  Depressing is the best word to describe the aesthetics.  

But the real shocker came when I moseyed up to the frozen food aisle, ready to be amazed at the vegetarian smorgasbord that surely awaited me.  Instead, I found a few packages of Morning Star grillers and some Boca Burger products.  Adequate, but less of an offering than what was at my old store.  

I'm not willing to render a final verdict just yet.  Certainly the Oak Ridge Lowes store is nicer looking with a better array of products.  But WalMart's 6-minute drive still holds a strong appeal.  I suspect we'll mix it up a bit, depending on our shopping needs for the week.

And that concludes this week's essay on "Wish You Were Here: Small Town Life in North Carolina."  Join us next week as I explore the controversial topic of "Front Porch Couches: Fashion Statement or Decorator Dilemma?"