Zombies Attack Barnes and Nobles - Authors Survive... barely

Metropocalypse 2012

It was meant to be a fun day of book signing, zombie walking, costume contesting, and general undead frollicking. No one anticipated it would turn out the way it did. No one thought it would be so devastating to the community. As of current count, 177 Barnes and Nobles customers were turned into zombies this past Saturday. On one hand, the undead population of Phoenix rose by a fraction, allowing the undead to join  the new minority of the un-taxable, but on the other hand, 177 Barnes and Nobles customers stopped reading. They exchanged their voracious hunger for books for a voracious hunger for the other white meat-- People!

 Shown here is a man who once read Hardy Boys, loved books on the Civil War, and had a subscription to Cat Fancier.

No More.

He can now be found downtown, feeding on the homeless.

And these young zombies. They meant well. They'd planned to come for the scavenger hunt and maybe check out some new Adam Nevill or David Moody books. Then they were infected, and all they wanted to do was a cha cha out the door to flavortown.


Probably the saddest of all is this young wanna be Barnes and Nobles customer turned into a zombie before she even knew what the letter Z was.

Okay. He's waayy to cute for me to continue this lie. In truth, no one really died or became undead or whatever.

It was all part of Metropocapylse 2012. Put together by Sarah and Dallas at the Metro Barnes and Nobles, it was everything zombies and apocalypse. I was asked to come because they love me to death, and I was asked to bring some other partners in zombie and apocalyptic crime.

Joe McKinney, Joe Nassise, and myself were on hand to sign a ton of books. (ashamedly I forget the other gentleman's name)

At one point there were more than 150 people in the store for the event. It went over tremendously well. I know a bunch of my fans came. They already owned my books, but left with other swag.

It was a terrific day all around.

They want to do it again next year... this time, bigger and better and more undead.

I plan on being there.

What about you?

Books and Kids of All Ages - Signing Story

Yesterday's book signing at Barnes and Nobles (Westside) in Tucson went terrifically. Mary, the publicity manager, had pre-positioned my table for several days. She'd also had a sign announcing the event since the first of the month. Add to that they were having a Teacher Appreciation Day and there was a load of traffic.

I posted the event on Facebook, which drew out a bunch of my confederates, including Joe Palmer (and wife), Scott Glenner (and wife), Jason Reinhardt and his brother and sister-in-law (Joe and Jennifer I think), Rebecca (and sometimes Klingon husband), etc. My parents, who live in Tucson, took me and Yvonne out to lunch, along with Nephew Tynan and GF Maria.

But I also had some folks show up based on their love of Empire of Salt. A young family traveled from Casa Grande to see me, have me sign a copy of Blood Ocean and chat about the Salton Sea (setting for Empire of Salt).

Some additional folks showed up because they were fans of Abaddon's Afterblight series.

 On a funny note, I was positioned beside the customer service desk and the escalator. A pair of kids was driving the staff absolutely mad running up and down the escalator. There were moments where I absolutely believed that if the staff had been allowed to kill just one person, it would have been a certain kid driving them absolutely batty.

On a more serious note, Mary and I talked about the state of bookstores, and especially as it relates to signings. With the closure of Borders, Barnes and Nobles is the only big chain store left in America. Mary, like her counterparts in all the other stores, gets inundated with requests for signings. She turns most of them down, because she checks sales records and such. This directly affects self-published and small press authors, especially those who have books price pointed above $15.

I was glad she asked me to come back to the store. But then again, in her eyes, I earned that right. I don't sit behind the table. I stand and greet everyone who comes by. I engage people. I sometimes ambush them. In the end, I sell a lot of books for the bookstore. I remember one signing when I sold out all the books they had of mine. I still had an hour left, so I went and found some books my friends had written, like Joe McKinney, and sold them. I even signed two of Joe's books as the 'Fake Joe McKinney.'

Bookstores, whether they be a big chain or an independent, expect authors to help sell books. Doing a signing in a bookstore is less of an honor than it is a job.

They had two rare copies of Empire of Salt which sold immediately.
They also had four copies of Scarecrow Gods which sold as well.

Caleb came back five times and finally convinced his dad to buy a
copy of Blood Ocean. Check out the look in his eyes. Man was he
excited.

Daniel is a fan of Afterblight and was psyched that I was coming  for a signing.

It was a terrific book signing. I sold most of the books you saw on that table. Mary invited me back. I'll probably do it in June or July, so if you live in Tucson and you missed me, you'll get another chance.

Thanks Barnes and Nobles!  Thanks Mary! And thanks everyone for coming out to my signing.

Open Letter to Brent Weeks

Dear Brent,

How's it going?

I'm doing pretty well. You know, working hard, but looking forward to coming home to read some good books. At the end of the day, no matter how bad it was, if there's a good book waiting for you how bad can it be? Oh yeah, and wine. Can't forget that.  Good book and good wine.

So I read your Night Angel Trilogy in 2009. Tremendous stuff. It made me a big fan. And that's no small thing. I'm very picky about my fantasy. As far as I'm concerned, my friend Steve Donaldson's work is the standard and anything not measuring up to that gets tossed across the room. And in my house, a lot of fantasy novels are tossed across the room. As a fellow author, I feel readers should be able to demonstrate their disappointment to the universe in this way. If any of my books don't meet their standards, I'd expect nothing less, although some of my limited editions could kill someone if tossed carelessly.

Christmas this year I was given two fantasy novels from my wishlist. One was yours, the other belonged to an author who shall remain nameless. Yes, his was tossed.  But the Black Prism wasn't. I held off reading it, because I wanted to be able to dedicate time to it. I was also involved in edits for two of my novels that are coming out, so I wasn't necessarily in the mood for your thoughtful prose.

But last week I read Black Prism. Let me say that you've improved with characterization to such a degree, I found myself liking each and every one. Your characterization was already good, mind you, but it's even better now. And what you did with the Prism (no spoilers here) took a lot of talent.  Good on you. And of course your magic system based on color is brilliant. I really enjoyed Black Prism.

But then I went to order the next book.

WTF, man!!??

Brent Weeks' Website

Night Angel Trilogy was published in 2008. All three books in one year. Black Prism was published in 2010. And book 2 isn't due out until September 2012? Which will probably make book 3 available in 2014? Seriously!  SERIOUSLY!

What a slacker!

Do you realize that I deploy to Afghanistan in July. If I want to read The Blinding Knife, I'm going to have to try and find a copy in the local Taliban Friends of the Library. I think I'll be a good 7,000 miles from the nearest Barnes & Nobles.

WTF, man!!??

Do me a favor. Do not put so much time between releases of you intend to write good books. It's just not cool.

One more piece of advice -- write quicker.

That's all.

Thank you.

And keep up the good prose (but write quicker).

Sincerely,
Weston