Where were we? Ah, yes: last time we spoke, I had just arrived in Seattle. I am now home, tired but happy, and I thought I would share a few more thoughts and highlights from the final week of my US book tour, between Seattle and San Francisco.
Sharpie. In under two weeks, I managed to go from not knowing what a Sharpie was — this brand of marker doesn’t exist in France — to being very particular about the Sharpie that I used: if it’s a fine point, I need it to be brand new, otherwise the line is too thick; if it’s an extra fine point, I need it to have a bit of mileage, otherwise the line is too thin.
Bookplates. Before I left New York, my publicist gave me a bundle of bookplates, a.k.a. ex libris — in my case, just blank stickers with a small Broadway Books logo at the bottom. This turned out to be a smart move (unsurprisingly so, for my publicist is a smart person) because we usually ran out of books to sell at the different events. The last people to arrive would look disappointed that they couldn’t get a copy, until I whipped out my stack of stickers and said, in my consolation prize voice, “Would you like me to sign a bookplate for you?” To which most people responded with a vigorous nod, and asked if I could sign one for their sister-in-law and their best friend, too.
A chef’s take on my recipes. About half of the events of the tour were booksigning dinners or lunches, i.e. meet-the-author events hosted at restaurants, during which our guests could eat, drink, and mingle. The chef could — but didn’t have to — plan the meal around recipes from the book, and a large part of the fun for me was to see what they’d done with them. They all did a great job, obviously, and after my initial feeling of relief (1- the guys in the kitchen do not smirk at me; 2- the food tastes great), I relished it when they took creative license with the dishes and made them their own.