I guess one might say I have just completed my very first book tour. And it was fun! The inspiration was the wedding of one of my dearest friend's daughter who wanted a destination wedding. The bride and groom chose Charleston as the destination and 12/12/12 as the date. Magnolia Plantation set scene for a lovely wedding and Catherine Buck Corell was a beautiful bride.It was logical to set up a few book events. After spending one night with my husband's brother Bill and his wife, Joyce, we set off on our adventure. Spartanburg was first on our stop. The venue was the Hub City Bookshop (which has the unique feature of being both publisher and book seller. The shop serves many purposes: Writers Project, Publisher and Book Shop encouraging writers and artists, publishing andhttp://hubcity.org/bookshop/) promoting their work.
The interesting thing about this book tour thing is that you do not know who your audience will be until they appear. That night an English teacher offered extra credit to those who would go and "hear the author." The old English teacher came out in me and I thoroughly enjoyed my audience. A father who decided to come in rather than just wait in the car paid me an enormous compliment by saying he found my talk on the book extremely interesting and he bought his daughter the book. I got lots of questions about writing which pleased me no end. I asked them to let me know whether they thought the book appropriate for a young adult audience. My publisher had once considered marketing Swimming with Serpents as young adult because of the age of the hero and heroine.
Tuesday took us to Greenville and a luncheon event at Twigs hosted by Fiction Addiction and Jill Hendrix. Jill's father Jim McPherson is an author who has written a novel based on his ancestor Penelope who came to America as one of the early settlers of New Amsterdam. That novel has proved interesting to me because of the genealogical connections to my own ancestors (Newkirks and Slechts) who settled in New Amsterdam. Sitting at my table was an old Dothan connection, Cathy Roberts, who once lived in Dothan and served at one time as President of the Dothan Service League. Though she still has family in Dothan, Cathy and her husband have moved to Greenville where she has become a book blogger! http://bermudaonion.net/ is where you will find her. 
For lunch we had the very best she crab soup ever at 82 across the street from the Mills House where we stayed.
Friday was Blue Bicycle night (http://blue bicyclebooks.com/) where we not only got to see Catherine Ford Fancher's daughter Crystal (only a year and a half away from completing medical school in Charleston) but we got to see old friends Bob and Frank Hardie and meet, for the first time, Bob's wife, Gail. Bob spotted the note Crystal left about her cousin's (on the other side of the family) restaurant, Carter's Kitchen. Article in the Post and Courier: (http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120217/PC05/302179903) The note caught Bob's eye because he lives in Mount Pleasant only blocks from the restaurant. So, we followed Bob and Gail to Carter's Kitchen and then followed Frank back downtown where he lives with his wife (unfortunately busy that night) in a condo on the water. Retirement is looking good on these guys.
The book events have many benefits beyond the actual book sales. I enjoy people. We met lots of new people and rekindled old friendships. Couldn't have had a more successful week!
