Big E Book Sales!!

I recently had the honor and opportunity to spend three wonderful days in Springfield Massachusetts at the Big E the weekend of 9/19-9/21/08 and all I can say is what an absolute, totally WHIRLWIND weekend it was!! I'm still flying from it and am sure I will be for a while. I talked to so many people (readers, parents, teachers, etc), sold SO many books (although I did come home with some of each, which is a good thing because I've got some events coming up in the next few weeks that I'll need books for ... but the whole Big E event was just a wonderful experience!

My son was there with me part of that weekend, helping to move books etc as I needed to (THANK YOU, MIC!!!), and as we were heading out to the car at the end of my third day there, I looked at him and said, "I feel like I'm leaving my kids behind". He looked at me kind of funny and I explained that after selling as many books as I did, talking to teachers and librarians and parents about promoting reading, visiting schools, etc etc etc, and spending nearly 12 hours every day for THREE days straight just trying to make a difference..... I felt like I was leaving something really important behind (and if you think about it, I really was). Honestly I feel like my total experience at the Big E was one of THE most rewarding and accomplished things I've done since I started writing!!! And what's even cooler than that is even after three 12-hour days of go go go, talk talk talk, sell sell sell, I didn't want to leave. I wanted to go right back in there and just keep doing it!!! It's exhausting and very overwhelming at times, but damn, I just didn't want to leave!!!!

Debbie and Mike Kilday were two of our staple contributors & organizers of this year's event, and I want to just send a MUCH deserved shout-out to them both!!!! Debbie has been there every day since the beginning of the Big E and WILL be there every day until it's done, and her husband Mike has been there almost every day. After dealing with arranging books, logging the sales, etc during the day, they then go home and tally up all the sales from the day. Debbie is our full time cashier, which was ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!!!! I told her (and Mike) over and over again that the booth is BEAUTIFUL this year and having HER for the full-time cashier really makes it easier for the featured authors to talk to the public, make the sale, and move on to the next reader without having to worry about dealing with the $$.

At the halfway point for the Big E (around day 8), the book sales in our booth had surpassed how much we made last year total!!! Our readers ROCK!!!! I worked with Doreen Tango Hampton and Elaine Alexander on Saturday and we stayed very busy nearly all day. I worked again with Doreen on Sunday and we had an absolutely WONDERFUL time working together sharing many laughs, ideas, and just having a great time together.... thank you ladies!!!

We had a near record-breaking number of people who came to the Big E on Saturday, 9/20 - the weather was beautiful, the sun was shining, it wasn't too hot .. it was just a GREAT day!!!

As it turns out, I had a record-breaking weekend for my OWN sales as well! According to what I was able to keep track of (and I'm sure it was actually more but I'm not sure how much), I believe I sold 250 books between this weekend and the sales from books last week that were in the booth before I got there!!!

WOW!!!

I had new readers who bought the set of three books in my series as well as readers who were looking just for book three, Dragon's Tear. I had anywhere from 8-year olds to retired grandparents buying books ... and all I can say is thank you to my readers, the parents, teachers, librarians, etc that I talked to this weekend!!! You guys ALL made my weekend one of the most memorable experiences of my life!!!

As I look back, all I can think of is what an experience it was!! I'm still flying after talking to a woman who said that the books are very hot in her school right now - (she was actually very surprised when she realized I was the author lol.) I asked her where her school was and she said ALBANY, NEW YORK!!!! I told her that I've never been there and she said, "Well, your books are there and the kids LOVE them.".....

WoooooooooooooooooooooHooooooooooooooooooo!!!! And to quote my good friend C.L. Freire.....

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!

A funny thing from this weekend .. I spoke to a woman and her husband yesterday who said their daughter was really disappointed that she couldn't be there to meet me, but she wanted to buy my books for her. I asked her how her daughter knew me or heard of me and she said she works at BORDERS IN SIMSBURY, CT (which I've been to about 4-5 times doing book signings LOL) and she's been wanting to meet me but always has to work or something else gets in the way ... so they bought her a set and I signed them for her ...

OMG OMG OMG!!!

At 6 pm on 9/21 it was the end of mine and Doreen's shifts and two new authors came in to be the featured authors. I decided to sign more books to leave since they'd been such a hit, and I was standing in the back of the booth. As I looked around every so often, I would notice someone looking at my books on the shelf and of course the marketing/selling side of me MADE me go talk to them (LOL) to let them know I was the author and which was book 1, book 2, etc. I was thrilled when I actually sold a copy of book 1 (Dragon's Blood) to one lady when she saw her 10-year old wanted it and then she said she would get the other two from me but had to wait for him to wander off to the lego place before she could. I told her if she didn't get the chance, here is my business card with my info on it and she can always call/email me and I'd be happy to sign them and mail them directly to her. Now that I think about it, I did that a LOT while I was up there ... :)

If you look in my pictures here on MySpace (http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=287280218&albumId=934345), I created a Big E 2008 photo album where I've put some pictures from yesterday when it finally slowed down for five minutes. My books were on the top of the brown bookshelf as soon as you walk into the booth. Indiana Jones was COMPLETELY made out of legos .. and I just had to get a picture of him. He was really amazing!!! I can't imagine how much time and legos it took to make him!!!! Kudos go out to the lego builders, too!!!

Well, the weekend is gone and today I have to go back to work. I just wanted to share my Big E experiences with you and tell you that if you're an author out there struggling to get your books out there, you CAN make a difference and it CAN be done!!!! Do everything you can to get your name out there!! If you'd like info about our CAPA group, visit the CAPA website at www.aboutcapa.com or email me at mjallaire@sbcglobal.net and I'll be happy to share anything I know. My next blog will have some info in it about what I do to get my books "out there"... so stay tuned for that!!

I actually got to go back to the Big E one more day .. 9/27/08 .. and managed to sell another 93+ books!!! So that brings my total to close to 400 books sold over a 17 day period (I was only there 4 of those days) and I believe I'm going to end up being THE TOP SELLER for the duration of the Big E!! If I didn't make the top seller, I will be very surprised ... and am sure I made the top three. What a wonderful feeling it is, to finally see the books that I've put my heart, soul and years of my life into finally getting "out there"!!! Mega thank you's go to those of you who took the time to stop and talk to me, and of course to those of you who actually bought one or more of the books!!! THANK YOU!!!

Also, infinite kudos to Debbie & Mike Kilday, the ENTIRE Capa BIG E Committee, and all those wonderful Connecticut Authors who are participating in the EXCELLENT and HUGELY SUCCESSFUL event this year!!!

Today is the first day of fall, so get out there and enjoy the cooler weather, make sure you ALWAYS have a book with you, and as always,
HAPPY READING!!!

Hugs from me to all of you,
MJ

MY Self-Publishing Challenges

Well I'm sitting here looking at what I believe to be the final product of the cover for my third book and decided to put down some of my thoughts...

I'm finding that although the writing process is quite a journey, the PRODUCTION process is an event to be remembered as well!

I publish through AuthorHouse. Once they receive my manuscript, they set an appt to have a design meeting, where I talk to someone about what I want in the galley (the guts of the book, like what type of picture I want behind the chapter headings, the font type, etc). Then we talk about the cover. They ask what I want on it ... I tell them key points of the story, and then they give it to their graphic artists to hopefully come up with what's in my imagination.

Well...

I told them for "Dragon's Tear", I want a dark body of water, like a lake, at night with a full moon rising in the sky and reflecting on the water. I want a large, white, ghostly dragon as the main picture, and a SAPPHIRE BLUE tear-shaped gem in place of the "o" in the title word "Dragon's". I think they did a good job with the water and the moon, but their first dragon was NOT white and was just plain UGLY!! (A picture of their first attempt is currently in my myspace account .. www.myspace.com/mjallaire .. go into the "pics" link, then "author pics" to see all the covers of my books). Their gem is also kinda purpley, and don't get me wrong, I LOVE the color purple, but it's supposed to be stinking BLUE!! I guess the way it is now it's mostly blue and the purple highlights the cuts in the stone ....

The deal with AuthorHouse is they'll design a cover for you... if you don't like it, they'll take one more stab at it for free. BUT!!! If you DON'T like their second attempt, they will charge you for each future attempt. When I rejected the first cover, I knew that this next one had to count...

And I got lucky, because personally I LOVE it! I think out of all 3 covers (again, all pics are currently on myspace if you follow the path above), this one is definitely the BEST!!
So now, I'm waiting to sign off on the cover, and I also have to see (someday ... whistling impatiently here) the galley (guts) of the book. Once I see it, I’m really hoping the galley will be fine and I will sign off on that, too. From that point, I'll have to set the price for the book, and THEN... and THEN... in about 10 days, the book should go LIVE on the AuthorHouse website!!!

In the contract I have with them for this book, I will receive 30 free copies of the book from them. Once I approve the cover and galley, I'm going to go through a company called iconix.biz to get about 300 copies printed, so I'll have them onhand to sell at schools etc. Can the clock move ANY slower????

For me, the writing is a challenge at times (I suffer from writer's speedbumps just like every other writer I know), and the marketing is definitely challenging and never-ending, but one of the hardest yet most satisfying parts of the production process is the time in between approving the cover & galley and finally getting that VERY FIRST book in my hands. It seems to take decades but in actuality is really only a matter of weeks. And it's not like I don't have a bazillion other things on my plate to keep me busy, but it is what it is. I know I have fans out there who are just as anxious to get a copy of the book as I am, although their reason is slightly different from mine... and I'm learning that one of the most satisfying feelings is being able to give them what they want...

Can someone move the hands on the clock forward about 300 rotations, please?

Anxiously awaiting the next step,
MJ
YA Fantasy Author

LIVE interview for YA Fantasy Author MJ Allaire!

Hi all!!

Friday night, 3/14/08, I had the opportunity to be interviewed LIVE by a group of wonderful people who put on a local cable show every two weeks called Planet Access. I worked a full day at my "day job", then drove just over an hour to get to this place (for the record, I didn’t get home till midnight!!!).

From the moment I got there I was VERY comfortable talking to Catherine, one of the hosts of the show, and then Matt, the other host, showed up and I was just as comfortable talking to him as well. I had a GREAT time while I was there and really enjoyed talking to them. As soon as they edit the interview and post it on YouTube, I’ll post the link on here for any of you who want to take a gander.

The BAD news about Friday night is that, while I was there, I lost my wallet. I’m pretty sure I lost it in the studio and by the time I realized it and got back there to see if anyone was there, they had closed up shop for the night. I’m hoping that someone tucked it away for safe keeping and I’ll find out maybe on Monday or Tuesday that they have it. I called the studio and left a voice mail on Friday eve about my predicament and one of the guys called me back Saturday morning and said that he couldn’t see it. But because it was the weekend I’m hoping that someone has it and they are just unreachable until tomorrow. What a pain in the butt! It had all my credit cards in it (for 4 separate accounts, which is another story), my license (of course), my medical card, gift cards to home depot AND walmart (OH, DISCORDIA!!) and about $100 in cash, among other things that I’m sure I’ll remember over the next few days ..... Ayeeeeeee!!!
Anyway, below is what Matt posted on their blog this morning (http://sagejester.typepad.com/planet_access/2008/03/mj-allaire-auth.html) and below that is what I posted as a comment... Enjoy!


MJ Allaire, author of the Denicalis Dragon Chronicles, visits our show!

Yes, on Friday March 15th (Einstein’s Birthday!), we had writer MJ Allaire as a guest on our show. She is the writer of Dragon’s Blood and The Prisoner, the first two books in her Denicalis Dragon Chronicles. We talked about the book series which is a fantasy series directed at 8-15 year olds. Of course, there are no age limits to the books as we had much fun reading them. :)
We also discussed self publishing. MJ had some great insight into the process. She talked about her situation and the freedom self publishing gave her. It is hard work promoting a book on your own, but MJ has come a far way in getting her series out there.

Although I stumbled quite a bit, and we had our usual technical difficulties (LOL) we all had a good time. The Record Journal even stopped by and got photos for an article they did on us! Clips of the show will be up as soon as we get them edited.

Thank you again MJ for stopping by and making for a great evening. If any of our viewers are interested in learning more about MJ and her books (including how to purchase them), please check out: www.mjallaire.com

Your Host,Matt

Comments
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Hi Matt! I just wanted to thank you, Catherine, and the entire crew for bringing me on your show Friday night and giving me the opportunity to talk about my writing, my experiences, and most of all, my books. My books began as a single book, and since I began writing in 2005, it’s been QUITE a journey! In my heart I believe my books CAN make a difference for young adults and their joy of reading, because I’m providing them with believable characters, mystery, adventure... and if you like magic and dragons, that too!

Currently I have 2 books physically out in the series, "Dragon’s Blood" and "The Prisoner". Book 3 in the series, "Dragon’s Tear" is due out in April. I’m hoping to have book 4, "Dragon’s Breath" out by Thanksgiving/Christmas this year and book 5 (still unnamed) out by next summer. Right now plans are to have 5 books total in the series, but since I write a paragraph at a time, there are no guarantees as to how side-tracked I might get between here and there!
I had a BLAST while I was there... you guys were a bundle of fun and I would not hesitate to come back if I happened to be invited ;)

If anyone has any questions about my books, my writing, or would like to get a personally signed copy of one of my books, please don’t hesitate to contact me at mjallaire@sbcglobal.net! I’d LOVE to come visit schools to talk to kids, or go to libraries to talk to anyone interested in reading or the writing process!

Thank you again, and I’ll let you know when "Dragon’s Tear" is available!
Happy reading!MJ Allairewww.mjallaire.comwww.myspace.com/mjallaire

As a side note, I went last week and had a mammogram and ultrasound and they found absolutely NOTHING wrong, so that's a biiiiiiiig weight off my shoulders!!!! Now if I could just find my wallet ......

:)