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September 27, 2009

Back from the Expo

We have just returned from North Bethesda, where we passed an enjoyable, productive weekend selling books and talking to various book-loving people at the Small Press Expo.

Here is Robbi in the booth. See that winning smile? She was made for retail.

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But back to the beginning of the story. Saturday morning, we rose at 6:00, dropped Alden off with our good friends and neighbors across the street, and drove to Bethesda. Rather, I drove to Bethesda and Robbi slept like a log. When we arrived, I loaded up the hand truck with our various books and booth accoutrements.

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Once inside, I started to set up the booth while Robbi continued to sleep like a log.

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But then I put up our new banner, and something awakened in Robbi's soul. She was suddenly full of vim and chanting the words of our new marketing slogan over and over again, louder and more enthusiastic with each ensuing iteration: Making Books. Seeking Genre. Living in a Barn.

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I knew right away that we were going to have a very good weekend.

Because I was in charge of the scheduling, we got to the convention hall early. We were among the few exhibitors in the room as we started setting up our booth.

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But as we continued fussing endlessly with our signage and little stacks of books, the room started to fill up around us.

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Eventually we were all set up and ready for the public.

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Moments later the public arrived en masse. They were determined, these people. They wanted to buy books and they wanted to buy them right now.

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People stopped to read our stuff. Some of them laughed. Some smiled. Others burst into tears. (We suspect the people who burst into tears were bothered by other things unrelated to our books, which are generally not tear-jerkers.)

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As is usually the case at these shows, Ten Thousand Stories and After Everafter were the big sellers, with The Baby is Disappointing and Nasty Chipmunk close on their heels. Also popular were Last of the Real Small Farmers, My Henderson Robot, and Dawn of the Fats.

In addition to selling books, we were visited by the CinnaBomber, a fellow book-hawker who was handing out fresh-baked treats as an elaborate means of driving traffic to his booth.

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Though tempted, we did not feed the Kevin.

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From time to time, Robbi fought bitterly with our friend in the next booth, Kenan Rubenstein. If you like smart writing, beautiful artwork, and compelling comics, have a look at his blog and comics.

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Near the end of the day today we made an important discovery. I have been having difficulty identifying the particular spark of inspiration that compelled me to write Nasty Chipmunk. At one point Robbi sidled up next to the rotating book display and made one of her usual faces. The similarity was too uncanny to be attributable to coincidence.

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I've suggested renaming the book Nasty Robbi, but apparently only one of us thinks that this is a good idea.

It was by far the best show we've had to date, both in terms of number of books sold and number of great conversations, connections, etc. People are starting to remember us from past shows and are returning to the booth to see our latest releases or to buy additional copies of books they've enjoyed to give their friends as gifts. But we keep on meeting new people, too.

We had a nice discussion with a teacher/translator/children's writer named Jane who wrote a really wonderful blog entry about The Baby is Disappointing.

We were interviewed by a guy who claimed that he was going to podcast our comments on After Everafter. I'll be sure to let you know if it comes to pass.

We are back home and have collected our child. By all appearances, she missed us not at all. If anything, she was disappointed to have to say farewell to our friends across the street and return to her own bed. Our stuff isn't as nice as theirs by a long shot.

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In disgust, she decided to wear the dog bed as a hat. It's not her fault that her best attempts at protest ended up being nothing but endearing.

Posted by bogenamp at September 27, 2009 10:00 PM