Signing at Carpe Librum

Memorial Day weekend marked my first book signing in my hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee. A great crowd of friends and family showed up at Carpe Librum on Saturday, and bookstore owners Shiela and Flossie told me afterward that this was their biggest signing event to date!

We were greeted with this amazing display when we entered. I particularly liked the sake and plum wine mixed in among the books and baseballs. By event's end, we had sold more than half the books on this table. I also signed a couple dozen more, so if you missed the event, signed copies are still available! Get them before they start selling for $500 on eBay!

My daughter Jo was particularly fond of the Samurai Shortstop cake, of which I have to show a close-up so you can truly appreciate it . . .

Pretty amazing, huh? The things kids can do with computers these days.

I got to see many old friends from many different stages of my life, many books were sold, and a good time was had by all. The day was mostly a blur for me, as I was meeting, greeting, and signing for almost three hours.

Thanks to everyone who made my big signing day one to remember!

Team Banzai - San Francisco Branch

Our field agent Emily Jiang in the city by the bay checks in with this report on her quest to find Samurai Shortstop on bookstore shelves . . .

Just thought I'd share with you my adventure looking for Alan's book around the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live.

My cousin is visiting from UCLA, and we had an opportunity to hang out for a few hours yesterday. So what do I do? I take her on a tour of some of the local independent bookstores, and we scour the children's book sections for our favorite books (she loves picture books especially while I'm more a YA book reader/writer). I'm lucky to live in a place where many indie bookstores abound.

First stop was Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, which neighbors Stanford University. Kepler's is a fabulous store and has been in business for over 50 years, though last year they infamously closed down. The local community succesfully protested and rallied to reopen the bookstore with a Save Kepler's campaign that resulted in the launch of a membership program. I'm proud to say I'm a card-carrying member of Kepler's. But I digress.

Kepler's Books also has a great children's section, so we we entered, my cousin and I made a beeline to that corner of the store. I looked for Samurai Shortstop. Nothing. I asked the children's clerk if it was available. She immediately recognized the title, and said it had great reviews. She was about to read the advanced reading copy because the rep selling the book raved about it. Supposedly the the copies were supposed to be at the store, but in reality they were probably "just about to arrive." Alas, I left Kepler's empty-handed.

Another stop was to my local bookstore in downtown Mountain View. It used to be called Printer's Inc, but that indie bookstore closed its doors several years ago to be replaced by another indie chain (sort of an oxymoron) called Books Inc. The children's section is its own separate room that in some parts of the country might be the size of someone's walk-in closet. Over here, where space is a huge commodity, it's more the size of someone's bedroom. Still the selection of children's books tends to be decently current. Except no Samurai Shortstop here either.

Is third time the charm? My cousin was most excited about Linden Tree in Los Altos because the entire bookstore is devoted to children's literature. Founded over 20
years ago, the store originally focused on children's recordings but branched out to include books as well. It also hosts many community events. I walk in and Bingo! Samurai Shortstop, facing front, is included on one of the displays near the front door. I bought the other copy, and the staff knew exactly where it was.

Another children's book store I often frequent is Hicklebees in San Jose. I might check it out tomorrow if I have time after my concert is over, since I'll be singing in the area. Or I might go to B&N or Borders and join Alan's Face Front Club. LOL.

Thanks for the report, Emily - or should I say, "Agent Quake."

Samurai Shortstop goes on sale

It's official: Samurai Shortstop is now on sale!

After two long years of work and anticipation, my first novel is finally out there. I suppose it's like sending a child out into the world on his own for the first time. I just hope Samurai Shortstop doesn't quit college and move back in to work at the video store while "looking for himself."

Thursday, the actual on-sale date, was a working day for me. I spent the morning at the North Pointe Barnes& Noble Booksellers signing close to a hundred copies of the book (the children's manager there is totally awesome!) and then had a school visit with the seventh graders that afternoon at Holcomb Bridge Middle in Alpharetta. Here I am with some of the lunch bunch who had been reading the book before my arrival:

Friday, Wendi took the day off work and we drove around to visit some of the Barnes & Nobles and Books-a-Millions within an hour of our home in east Atlanta. We found Samurai Shortstop in half the Barnes & Nobles and all the Books-a-Millions - except for one BAM where they had already sold their lone copy! I signed a bunch of books, met a lot of booksellers, and had a great time seeing my book on actual bookstore shelves.

Here's Samurai at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Little Five Points in Atlanta. As you can see, I'm a charter member of the Face Front Club. Oddly, B&N has coded Samurai Shortstop not as "Teen," but as "Young Readers." That means you won't find me near Printz award-winner John Green, you'll find me near Butt Wars: The Final Conflict. Hrm. Still, I'm happy to be in Barnes & Nobles, and in such numbers - every time we found Samurai at a B&N, there were three copies on the shelf!

It's been a hectic but fun two days, and things promise to get even better now that the book is out. Hope you enjoy it!

Samurai Shortstop sightings!

We're at T-minus five days and counting until Samurai Shortstop's official on-sale date (May 18th), and reports are coming in from my field agents (whom I have dubbed "Team Banzai") that copies are already finding their way onto bookstore shelves! Check this out:

Our most dogged agents (read: my parents) discovered these two copies of Samurai Shortstop on the young adult shelves at the Knoxville Books-a-Million and took a photo as evidence. Agents Ron-san and Dotiko graciously left the two copies unpurchased, as they already have a number on order from a large, online retailer named after a long river in South America.

I particularly like how both my name and the book title stand out from even this distance, while the books beside Samurai Shortstop are somewhat harder to read. My shelf neighbors are noteworthy though: the Tales of the Otori series by Lian Hearn on the left are set in a fantasy world that closely resembles sixteenth-century Japan (nice synchronicity there) and Looking for Alaska on the right is a buzzworthy Printz award-winner from 2005. Good company indeed.

Now for the fun part. Note that the above picture is how they found the books, and then compare that to how they left the books, below . . .

Yes, congratulations are in order: my parents have joined the Face Front Club! The FFC is a loose organization of authors and supportive friends and family who shamelessly face out books that were previously spined out, as Samurai was in the first picture. Not only did my parents spine out the Printz award-winner in favor of Samurai Shortstop, they slid John Green out of alphabetical order to maintain the shelf asthetic! Now that's dedication. You should all learn from their example.

Before we leave the Knoxville Books-a-Million (where, after three straight days of visits, my father is now routinely tracked by the security cameras in the ceiling), here's one more picture. It's a bit darker, but shows you how I further lucked out by getting prime top-shelf real estate, right under the "Teens" sign. Just a happy coincidence of alphabetical geography:

Too sweet. As is tonight's news from Ben "Sulu" Mitchell, our Team Banzai man in Florida. While I was busy blogging about the Knoxville sighting, he e-mailed me to report a similar encounter at the Fort Walton Beach Books-a-Million! Agent Sulu was unable to take a picture of the lone copy, but reports that he took it home with him as evidence. We're assuming that means he actually bought the book, because part of the Team Banzai credo reminds us that "Crime doesn't pay . . . royalties."

Just remember, if you see a copy of Samurai Shortstop on the shelves of your local bookstore, the first thing to do is not panic. Panic will only frighten and confuse the booksellers. The second thing to do is to take a picture of the book and e-mail the jpg to Alan-san at samurai@alangratz.com. Doing so will automatically make you a full-fledged field agent of Team Banzai. Third, you should buy the copy. If you already own one, buy a copy for a friend. They make great holiday presents, and can be used as paper weights or coffee table shims.

Gambatte!

The Big Lexington Recap

All right, it's been a while since I've blogged, but I have a good excuse. I've been busy, busy, busy - but in a good way.

This past weekend in Lexington, Kentucky I had my first school visit and first booksigning. What a trip! My visit to Lexington Catholic was just amazing. I spoke to three assemblies, one freshman English class, and had lunch with a great group of kids from the creative writing club. All in all, I think I spoke to around five hundred high schoolers about Samurai Shortstop, the writing life, and the dominance of Tennessee athletics. Okay, I didn't mention the UT stuff to the partisan Kentucky crowd, but I was certainly ready if anyone heckled me.

The students had great questions, and the faculty was extraordinarily welcoming. Thanks to David Harrity, poet laureate of Lexington Catholic (and the other bearded dude in the picture), for being such a gracious host.

On the heels of my great visit to Lexington Catholic, Wendi and I attended the author reception for the following day's Bluegrass Festival of Books. For some reason I completely missed the "business casual attire" note on the invitation, and I walked in wearing slacks and a white t-shirt. I felt like a doofus. Wendi wasn't dressed much better, but women can totally get away with looking dressier than men by wearing a long skirt and a t-shirt. It's a total cheat.

So, while I stood around feeling self-conscious about how amateur I looked, I got to reconnect with some old friends from Joseph-Beth Booksellers, the Lexington book store co-sponsoring the festival with the Lexington Herald-Leader. After that I did the standing-around-looking-around-like-somebody-I-knew-was-suddenly-going-to-walk-in-but-I-know-they're-not thing (which I have honed to a science) for a little while, until the lovely and charming Lauren Myracle (author of ttyl and ttfn, among others) came over to bail me out. She knew my name from a YA author listserv we both belong to, and we did the let's-hang-out-for-the-rest-of-this-soiree-because-we-don't-know-anybody-else thing until we could take the first shuttle back to the hotel. She and Wendi chatted on the way back about the business side of things while I zoned out, having been up since four a.m. that morning - two hours before my six o'clock alarm was supposed to have gone off.

The next morning we hit the festival early to do a bit of browsing, only to learn that my booth was ready for me anytime - not just the 1-5 p.m. time I was scheduled to sign books. Wendi and I quickly decamped, and I began selling and signing Samurai Shortstop. It was the first time I'd seen a stack of the real hardbacks, and I felt like I was walking about two feet off the showroom floor. I had to come down pretty fast though, because I had a steady stream of visitors throughout the day - only two of whom were related to me! (Very distantly, I came to find out, but thanks to the Alspaughs for coming out to see me!)

Wendi manned the booth for a few minutes here and there while I ran around and got Lauren Myracle, Michele Jaffe, and Ned Vizzini to sign books for me. Once I returned to my booth, I moved copies of Samurai at a steady pace until it was time to hit the YA panel. Traveling in the company of Lauren and Michele made me look glamorous for a few brief minutes, for which I am eternally grateful. The panel was great, (I actually got asked a question or two!) and the good-sized crowd was enthusiastic and knowledgeable.

Back at the booth for the afternoon, the crowds kept coming. I don't know how many people came to that book festival overall, but we never stopped talking to people and selling books. By the last hour of the day, we had two measly copies of Samurai left - two! One was nabbed for a festival door prize and the other got sold, signed, and stamped with my new hanko. We started the day with thirty books on the table, and ended with zero. It was a heck of a day.

After saying goodbye to my new YA author acquaintances, it was off to find food and celebrate a mucho successful weekend. Then, lo and behold, we actually stumbled across the only Mellow Mushroom in Lexington. If ever I had doubt that I live a charmed life, that dispelled it. I happily reveled in my legitimate-authorness while I consumed my favorite pizza in the world, and then Wendi and I made one last stop - the Lexington Joseph-Beth Booksellers, where I signed and stamped the last three copies of Samurai Shortstop they had on hand. (They had already sold two of the original five they had on hand - Wendi used her super-secret former-bookseller powers to look it up on the computer!)

Wendi and I were both weary on the drive back to Knoxville, where our daughter had stayed the night with her grandparents and no doubt eaten mass quantities of banana splits. It was just a fantastic weekend in Lexington, from beginning to end. Thanks again to Lexington Catholic for your hospitality, and to the Bluegrass Festival of Books and the people of Lexington for your affirmation and enthusiasm.

Whew. And Samurai Shortstop isn't even officially out yet!