Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Oh, the horror!

I spent a significant amount of time in book publicity before becoming an agent.

I didn't laugh when I read Bella Stander's roundup; I wondered how she knew so much about what I'd seen!

You could add to that list:

The client who was poking along at a snail's pace before a reading and said, when prodded by me, "oh they can't start without me."

And the same client who poked along signing books at the end of the reading and when advised the store clerks needed to close up and go home "oh they'll just have to wait. That's their job."


And a client who spent twenty minutes at a reading telling the audience why the review in the local paper was wrong wrong wrong.

And the client who stopped her presentation to tell the other panelists to be quiet because she's let them have their say and now she expected the same courtesy.

Oh yes, those are the ones you hope to forget and soon!

But there are others:
Neil Gaiman-who stayed to sign books for every single person in line-all 300 of them.

Steve Raichlin-who carried on with nary a turned hair when the grill collapsed

JoAnna Lund, bless her dear departed heart, who said "you make it all so easy to do, thank you"

and Sue Grafton, who upon realizing the engine was smoking said very sweetly "I think this is my fault. It happened in San Francisco yesterday too" (well, no it was the oil pump. It broke. But I never would tell that to Sue!)

2 comments:

Kel-Bell said...

Well, I only hope someday and agent will say such kind things about me.

Aprilynne Pike said...

Me too!