Thursday Tip...Take advantage of opportunity!

From Christian Retailing:

Authors, media float ideas
Authors from Multnomah Books and WaterBrook Press met members of the media during an informal "Coke Float" dessert reception on Monday afternoon of the International Christian Retail Show.

Publicist Katie Schroder told Christian Retailing that around 25 WaterBrook and Multnomah authors, whose books release in 2007, shared stories and ice cream floats with between 15 and 20 members of the convention media.

"Our goal was to do a one-stop shop where media can meet our authors," she said.

Authors included Tricia Goyer, author of Generation NeXt Parenting and the upcoming Generation NeXt Marriage; Robert Elmer, author of Like Always; Lori Smith, author of A Walk With Jane Austen; and first-time author Amy Wallace, whose suspense novel, Ransomed Dreams, released in April

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I'm home from Atlanta.

Okay, I got home last night 24-hours late ... after getting caught on the runway (for three hours) in Atlanta because of storms in Memphis--one of my two connections. (More about that on another blog.)

Knowing I would never make my connections, I called Northwest from the plane and rescheduled my flights for the next day. I'm glad because once we got to Memphis there were 200+ people in line looking for new flights.

Hotels were another problem. I didn't think ahead to reserve one of those too. (Save this info for next time ....) When I got to Memphis, the only thing with rooms was the $44 Travelodge--with doors on the outside and scary! But it was all they had!

They wouldn't hold a room over the phone, so I headed over. Before leaving I saw an editor from Revell. I gave her my cell in case she couldn't find a room.

In the end, I secured beds for three grateful editors. Vicki and I shared a room. There wasn't even a little shampoo bottle! No clean clothes. No makeup. No hairdryer. But I got to know the wonderful editor better. She's very nice!

As for the media event with Coke floats (mentioned above). I TOTALLY crashed it. My Generation NeXt Parenting book came out in 2006. One publistist mentioned the event at the booth, and I KNEW I hadn't been invited. Then, another mentioned it when I was at the hospitality suite for another media interview. I was just getting back from a radio interview with HomeWord when it started. So I stayed ... (my excuse was I introduced some of the new authors and helped them talk about their books ... which helped them). I pulled books off the decorative shelves and GAVE them to the media people. (Can you guess which ones? Yup, the books mentioned in the article!)

The funniest thing is that I really connected with the guy from Christian Retailing. He was super nice. He was a Gen Xer, we graduated in the same year, and I'm just three weeks older. I showed him the chapter titles and we started singing all the 80s songs. So ... oops. I didn't mean to crash or get my name mentioned ... but there you go!