Sooo, on Halloween weekend, I wore my firefighter costume and traipsed to 30+ Bay Area bookstores to sign stock copies of MEN ON FIRE.

What seemed like a brilliant idea (the costume) in the shower, felt embarrassing once implemented, as I realized I was nearly the only one walking around wearing a costume. (NOTE: I did find a handful of B&N and Borders staff in costumes - please go vote for a winner!)

Here’s a video of my costume - (yes, yes, I am spending waaaay too much time experimenting with my camcorder and video software. But it’s so much fun!)

And here are some wonderful discoveries made on my trip:

• Nearly all the B&N stores had MEN ON FIRE face-out on the romance new release shelf
• The B&N on Almaden Expwy in San Jose, CA had the most copies - 6 copies
• Within 3 days, the B&N store in Fremont, CA had sold 2 of the 3 copies and has 3 on backorder
• Several of the stores invited me to do a book signing - details coming
• Though MEN ON FIRE had not arrived at all stores, I signed books at 25 or so of them. Click here for a list of stores with autographed copies.

Isn’t that great news?

Now, I suppose I’d best get to work doing something like … oh, I don’t know … writing?! (LOL)

It began with a simple question…

“Do you want me to pick up a bottle of water for you?” asked Christine Witthohn, my agent and roomie at the Women’s Fiction Festival in Matera, Italy.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” I said.

“Large or small?”

“Large, since I’m trying to drink more water.”

And, with that, Christine returned with the largest bottle of water I’d ever seen. Which sent me into a round of giggles.

When I retold the story to Cassy Pickard, more giggles ensued, and I said the water bottle felt like an award, which somehow led to a discussion of the author I aspire to be like one day, Dean Koontz, which somehow led to this video:

Silly, huh? But, I still crack up every time I view it. (LOL)

Okay, I finally managed to put together a short video on the Women’s Fiction Festival in Matera, Italy that I’ve been talking about for the last month or so. Check it out. Does it make you want to attend next year??

I hope so — it was a BLAST! Delicious food, wonderful attendees, and great networking with agents and editors. You might have recognized some of them on video, i.e., Kate Burke (Penguin UK), Deb Werksmann (Source Books), Alesssandra Bazardi (Harlequin Mondadori), Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen (Michael Larsen-Elizabeth Pomada Literary Agents) and Christine Witthohn (Book Cents Literary Agency).

So … NOW, do you want to attend??