Joanna Brady #17

Once again, I’m going to do a double-whammy blog and e-mail blast to let people know that the schedule for the July and August tour appearances are now posted.  On the website, www.jajance.com, click on the map.  Find your state.  Find the events.  If you click on the link, you’ll go directly to either the venue or the hosting entity’s website.  This may even include maps. Some additional events for September will be added later in North and South Carolina.  And as of today, there will be a library event in Owasha, Ontario in October.  We’ll try to send out an addendum when the latter events are finalized.

Joanna Brady 17, Remains of Innocence goes on sale July 22 as does the paperback, aka “dead tree” edition of The Old Blue Line.

When schedules are posted, my mailbox often fills with whiny e-mails from people complaining about same:  What?  No Spokane?  No Eugene?  No Vancouver?  No Portland?  No whatever?   This time around, I took the scheduling reins in hand and booked events for those places where I know I have lots of readers but seldom do signings.  The booksellers have taken me at my word when I told them I wanted lots of people.  They have reserved venues, like the Crosby Theater in Spokane–places with plenty of room for lots of people.  Now the trick is getting those people to show up. We need to get YOU to show up!!

During wintertime Arizona signings, countless snowbird fans have asked:  When will you come to Minnesota?  Or Michigan?  Or Wisconsin?  Or Kansas?  So that’s what my publicist has done this time–booked Remains of Innocence events in places where snowbirds hang out in the summer.  If you’ve come to signings in Arizona in the winter and enjoyed yourselves, bring your summertime friends neighbors along to see me on your home turf. You make it an evening, and I’ll do my best to make it fun.

On every tour, I encounter a few people who tell me that they’ve never been to a book signing, and they came with no idea of what to expect.  Here are a few book signing clues for the uninitiated, or, as I like to call them, Book Signing Virgins.  Unless otherwise stated in the schedule, book tour events are free of charge.  You can count on a two hour program–an hour of speaking plus another hour for signing.  Some people are under the mistaken impression that there are always readings at book signings.  There may be readings at other people’s signings, but not at mine.  I don’t do readings; I do talkings.  I put on an hour-long Garrison Keillor type show that tells you about my life and times.  You can expect to hear something about the origins of this book as well as the origins of some of my other books, too. If the spirit moves me, I may even break into song.

There will be booksellers at every event.  No one will hold a gun to your head and force you to buy a book before you’re allowed leave.  However, if I’ve done a good enough job in the presentation, you may want to pick up a book or two.  And no, you don’t HAVE to buy the new book at the event, either.  I have any number of readers who grab the new book at midnight on the day it goes on sale and have it read by early the next morning.  Those early-bird readers are welcome to come have their early-bird books signed as well.

You are ALWAYS encouraged to bring unsigned backlist titles to events to have them autographed.  I sign old books as well as new books.  And, if you have a suitable Sharpie, I occasionally sign iPads and iPad covers, too.  If you show up with bags of books, please do NOT jump up and rush to the head of the signing line.  Stay comfortably seated until the end of the line and then bring me your bags or cartons or roll-a-boards full of books and I will sign them. From the looks of this tour, there aren’t that many tight connections, so I should be able to autograph all of them.

Just in case you’re wondering why I’m not doing events in your backyard this time around?  Believe me, I’m doing as much as I can and then some.  Take another look at that rigorous schedule and then remind yourself, “That old gal is pushing seventy.”  Because I am!  In fact the very next thing on my to do list is to go on-line and complete my social security signup form.

I hope to see you on the trail.  It’ll be hard work for me but it’ll also be fun and rewarding hard work.  One of the major benefits of being a writer is having opportunities to meet my fans in person.

JAJance

p.s. –  For an autographed bookmark (for those who prefer to NOT have their iPad or Kindle signed) send a BUSINESS size SAS letter to:

J.A. Jance
P.O. Box 766
Bellevue, WA 980022

Bookmarks will also be available at signings.