Au Revoir & A Book Party at The King's English for WHEN THE BUTTERFLIES CAME!

I'm packing today and leaving bright and early tomorrow, Wednesday, for Utah for my son's graduation from BYU and a family reunion and my book signing at The King's English on Saturday, August 17th at 11:00 a.m.! If you can't come you can order a signed copy by phone and they will ship it to you!

Please come if you're in the area! We're doing butterfly trivia, behind-the-scenes publishing stuff, making butterfly necklaces, and having butterfly cake! Oh, and I'm signing stacks of books! :-)

Until later next week!

xo,
~Kimberley

Introducing Milly and Alamosa Book Store Event!!!

So Ladies and Gentlemen! This is what happens when you leave an adorable Kinda-sorta Personal Assistant in front of a computer with your Author Blogger up. You Get a totally Awesome Partially Biased Blog recounting the more Interesting Activities of what happens in this mad Little house! First off Let me introduce Me. My Name is Milly (Short for Milyssa). I am totally crazy, incredibly crafty and only Mostly conceited. I LOVE books, Japanese Anime and Manga, Tim Burton Movies and most recently Korean Dramas (Curse you Netflix!!). So how do I know Kimberley, you ask and how did I become her kinda-sorta assistant? Well the story we tell the public is that she found me at a slave auction in Budapest and took pity on me and bought me instead of letting me be bought by the local Baker. (We've all seen Sweeney Todd, we know what happens when you are owned by a baker :/ ) But the actual truth is "We are Family, Yeah, I got all my sisters with me." *Does a little dance*

But Back to the point! So What happens in Kimberley's Life and most importantly what type of Author Activities does she do? Well, Let me tell you!


On November 5th 2011, Mrs. Kimberley Griffiths Little enlisted  the help of Me, Your Friendly Neighborhood Milly, to be her assistant for her Book Signing Party at Alamosa Book Store in Albuquerque, NM. I Figured, Hey no problem, I've seen The Devil Wears Prada, and she can't be as bad as Helen Mirren's Character......... Can She? :)

We arrived at the Bookstore around 1:30 after having a delicious lunch at the nearby Dion's (Pizza!!! Yumm!!) and proceeded to start hauling stuff into the store to set up. We had displays, food, A deliciously Awesome cake (Made by myself of course, With a little Help from Betty Crocker) and a fun Charm Bracelet Craft for people to either make or purchase as a gift to go with the book. After Hauling in the important stuff, like the Poster size book cover of the Circle of Secrets and the 'Gators and The Gumbo (You can never forget the gumbo!!) and making sure it was all properly set up we went out for the Crème de la crème of our event.



The Princess Castle Cake! (Made by yours truly) but as we pulled out the box that had the cake we suddenly realized that a secondary box for the cake was missing. The towers for the absolutely Gourgeous Castle cake were forgotten to be packed in the car by a certain somebody’s spouse (Probably because he had small children crawling all over him ) Fortunately the cake was adorable enough to not need the towers so we put it out anyway! 


ENTER LOTS OF PEOPLE!!

TAH DAH!!!

But first we discovered a Treasure Trove of Kimberley's  Books, The Healing Spell and  Circle of Secrets!!









Anyways, People came in and started filling up all the lovely seats while I set up the Charm Bracelet Craft in the back of the store. Then The Magic Started! Kimberley got up and introduced what was happening and said a few nice words about the store and its owners. Then introduced her Adorable assistant (Me!) and explained what the craft was that we would be doing in the back after the Presentation was over! And then she pressed play and Wonderful Cajun Music filled the air as a video presentation of her adventures in Louisiana played on a screen.

I will admit that the music might have stopped half way through the presentation and it might have been the fault of the person who made the video for Kim *cough cough*milly*cough cough* but the rest of the Video went very Smoothly Including the New Book Trailer for Circle of Secrets! 

Spectacular and Spooky Book Trailer for CIRCLE OF SECRETS AT THIS VERY LINK!!! 

After the Video was done Kimberley gave a very nice talk that included a couple of very well placed jokes, a bit of "ooh"s and "aah"s and a wonderful reading of her book! (She even threw on a little Cajun accent but Shh you didn't hear it from me) Either way her Presentation ended with wonderful Applause! And then everyone got in line for the Book signing and food!! 

The Bracelet activity went off without a hitch and many young girls walked away with fun bracelets to keep and cherish for the rest of their lives! (Or till they lose it).

Afterwards everyone was happy but exhausted and I think the event went very Well. For all those who made it We thank you from the bottom of our hearts but if you didn't make it this time then make sure to be there Next time for Kim's future YA "Bellydance" Novel. (I hear there is going to be some really cute young ladies doing some belly dances ;D )


So This is Milly Signing off! And be prepared to hear from me more in the future!

Meeting Jennifer Cervantes!

Last week I did a book signing at Bookworks in Albuquerque (and which I still need to show pictures to y'all - how about tomorrow? :-)).



Yesterday I headed back over there for Jennifer Cervantes' signing for TORTILLA SUN (Chronicle, 2010) , her debut middle-grade novel.

Isn't it pretty?


Jennifer and I met online, she lives about 4 hours south of me - and she is absolutely gorgeous and delightful and so friendly.

Here she is! (She also has stunningly beautiful daughters, too. Me, I have three BOYS.)


Jen and me with our brand new books, pubbed mere weeks apart. See, we're buds now. I already call her Jen, not Jennifer. If you go to her website, you can call her that, too. :-)


See the inside of my autographed book . . .


I love the blue sparkly interior!

And the book is set right here in beautiful New Mexico about magic and baseball and grandmothers and secrets and Hispanic curenderos - which are amazingly close to traiteurs (Cajun French folk healers) in Louisiana in my book, The Healing Spell. So I think me and Jen have the same wave length going on. I'm just not sure if SHE knows that yet . . .  I'd better ask her what her next book is about and make sure we're not channeling each other . . .

Turning the Conference Notebook Page . . .

If you missed my post last Friday about author Bree Despain's workshop on Paranormal Young Adult books, go here: Peek Into My Notebook . . .
Josi Kilpack is a Very Cute Author with lots of energy and enthusiasm and the writer of delicious romantic suspense who gave a great workshop on how to make your first Bookstore Booksigning or Book Launch Party a great success.

BEFORE THE LAUNCH PARTY:

1. When you're scheduling your book party, don't schedule more than two hours. Ninety minutes is even better. You don't want the party to lag and you don't want to get tired and feel yourself and your smile drooping. Ninety minutes is plenty of time to give your talk, do your dramatic reading, autograph books, visit with everyone and eat all that great food.

2. Door prizes are fun! Something simple and not too costly, but prizes give it a real festive air and get people excited to attend.

3. Guest List: Invite everyone you know, no matter where they live. You never know when they might be in town the day of your book signing and attend!

4. Send Invitations no more than two weeks before. People will forget if you send them out too early. Your invitations can be a postcard, a note on cardstock, flyers on community bulletin boards, your email list, Facebook Friend's list, Twitter, and an announcement through your website. Create a Facebook Event with details. (My own personal note: I get invitations to events on FB that have no details of location, town, address, or time of the event so don't forget those details!) Include On-line Ordering for those who can't attend the event.

5. Pace your Social Networking Announcements. Don't saturate announcements through your online venues and bore people or bug them with all the me, me, me talk.

6. Invite the Media. Send out invitations to librarians, teachers, the local newspaper and radio, other writers, neighbors, potential readers and past readers.

THE NIGHT OF THE LAUNCH PARTY: 

7. Dress For Success: Coordinate with your book cover! Not too formal (don't wear a cocktail dress and pearls unless that's the kind of party you're putting on and have let your guests know ahead of time, but truly, it's not needed for a book signing.) But not too casual (no jeans or jammies ot T-shirts).

8. Take full advantage of THE NIGHT! Have a sign-up email sheet for those who want to get on your mailing list.

9. Give each guest attention - make things positive. Let your guests know you were glad they were there. Don't be monopolized by your long-lost roommate from twenty years ago who wants to catch up and keep you in a corner.

AFTER THE PARTY IS OVER: 

10. Feel good about what you've done, the work you put into it, the time and money well spent. No Regrets! For those people who could not attend and ask how the book launch went, be enthusiastic and DO NOT bemoan all the people who didn't show up. Even if all you had was 5 people ACT AS IF IT WAS THE GREATEST NIGHT OF YOUR LIFE AND YOU HAD A FULL HOUSE. Your attitude and enthusiasm will infect your non-attendees to run out and get your book. And they won't miss your next party!

11. Send THANK YOU NOTES to the bookstore and its employees and all those friends and family who helped you out. Blog your Thank You's. Facebook Thank you's to all your attendees.

12. Evaluate: Do more people know about your book after your launch - whether they attended or not? Think about what you would do differently next time? What have you learned?

HAVE A GREAT BOOK LAUNCH AND HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!