First times are magical.

And this one was a biggie.

Guess where we were the other day, me and my sister and co-author. Just guess. 

You'll never guess so I'll just tell you.

We were selling our books! Printed books. Real books, with covers front and back, and an author picture, and lovely cream paper. Pages that you can fan and smell, which speaking only for myself I have done repeatedly.



Squee!!  Here we are selling honest to goodness books!

In Print hosted a book fair at the Mendelssohn in Rockford on October 25 (which, by the way, was yours truly's birthday, which is why I have a birthday badge on my boob). It was the first time that Jen and I had been able to set up shop with physical books that we could sign and sell.

There were over 30 authors attending that day, and we were right in the thick of it.

We were ready.

It was a very long-awaited, exciting day. Jen, at one point, said that I was so animated that she was just "the string to my balloon." Yes. That pretty much summed it up. 

Can you blame me? It was my birthday. I was selling books with my sister. We had a cool looking, witchy banner. We had (thanks to my media specialist sister) book stands. We had oversized post cards with the names of our books, as well as a description and QR code to scan on your phone. We had business cards and special book signing pens, thanks to Kelly Epperson. We had a beautiful tablecloth that matched the colors of our book covers.

Bull Garlington wandered over and told us how interesting our cover was for Cat, Charmed. (another squee in order here, since he's such a cool dude.)

We also had a Halloween candy dish full of chocolate. That was magical too, in that it kept disappearing.

We had two Whitfield Witch mug giveaways; people who signed up for our fledgling newsletter with their email address had a chance at winning. Winners were Sharon Boehlefeld and Margie Seger (congratulations!) and we also have a great start for an email list.

My son and husband volunteered all day long. My daughter filled in as booth babe for "Birth That Book" Kelly Epperson, who had a prior commitment, and my other daughter and her fiancé came with my granddaughter, who posed for pictures and got to visit and color in the Kids' Zone.



Can I color in this one, Grandma?
No. No, darling, you cannot.
 

We sold a respectable amount of books. We met some cool local and cool not so local authors. We signed, and chatted, and nibbled on Halloween candy and in general, had a spectacular day.

By the time the last table was folded up, we were so exhausted that we headed home for sweatpants and my kids all came over for pizza. And later, there was a whiskey on the rocks.

We know what to expect now for the next one, and we're ready for that one, too, books in hand.