Just a quick post that will not begin to cover everything that’s going on in these last few weeks before publication of The Four Ms. Bradwells. I’m busy doing or getting ready to do promotion: online with guest blog posts (some up already, more to come) and online chats and video interviews, radio, and book tour. We have a very nearly complete list of in-person events now; I’m just waiting to finalize some dates in Chicago that will be in addition to the Chicago Tribune Printer’s Row Book Fest there in early June. I’m quite excited to go back! I’m grateful for the wonderful booksellers who were kind enough to have me do an event for The Wednesday Sisters and have invited me back again – including Kepler’s, where my launch party will take place Tuesday, March 22, and Books Inc. Berkeley, which is organizing my reading there (with Tatjana Soli, author of The Lotus Eaters!) as a benefit for the Women’s Cancer Resource Center of Oakland. Ditto for the radio and website and blog hosts who are hosting me a second time as well.
Many of the things I’ve been doing as a result of all this aren’t exactly what you think of as the stuff of literature. (Window or aisle? The Michigan League or the Campus Inn?) I’m counting my blessings that I have the amazing Lisa Barnes lining up so many wonderful events on top of everything else she does.
I’ve also been trying to clear the decks of some housekeeping chores that have been on the list for a long time, including adding nifty little “follow this blog” boxes on the sidebar here. (Go ahead, add yourself and see your photo pop up in the box!) Rest assured 1st Books will remain running while I’m out promoting The Four Ms. Bradwells. I’ve lined up posts going into May – including a month of Poetry Tuesday posts for National Poetry Month in April – and have them ready to go up automatically (lest I forget). So do check back each week for a taste of other published authors and poets experiences publishing all throughout the next months.
What else? I orchestrated a giveaway with a group of author friends: 96 books – a year of reading for one person and his or her seven friends. (Sorry, the winner has already been drawn!) I received the cover for the audio version of The Four Ms. Bradwells, which is similar to the hardcover version – again, a neck and pearls, and no boats – without being exactly the same. (The link is a pdf, so be patient; it takes a minute to open.) And last but not least (or last but not least that I can think of to mention), I’ve now gotten a whole box of beautiful copies of my books – you may have heard my whoop about that on twitter or facebook – where I figured out how to change my url from some ugly long thing to www.facebook.com/novelistmeg (which I could imbed, but I want to show it off). The books are gorgeous! I would line them all up and take a photo to put up here, but that would require that I find my desktop, which is, I’m afraid, a challenge at the moment. So I best get to that task! – Meg
