OK I want you all to know I am not one bit upset that today Stephanie Klein's book, "Straight Up and Dirty" is #337 on Amazon, while mine is #94,000-something or other.

Not at ALL, do you hear me? Nor that she got some huge book deal plus a TV show and is now writing full time and is fabulously successful and happily married. I mean WHATEVER STEPHANIE KLEIN! WAS YOUR BOOK HAULED UP TO THE TOP OF MOUNT RAINIER BY A LOYAL FAN? I THINK NOT!!

All that matters to me is that you, my small but select crowd of readers, love the book, which you seem to do. Take this comment, which was posted on my last entry.

"Your book arrived from AMAZON yesterday. Once I started it, I could NOT put it down. THANK YOU, BB! Having recently lived through a quite similar Great Unpleasantness (my live-in boyfriend cheated and lied about, even to this day), your book has given me strength to carry on. I dealt my revenge metaphorically through your actions. The lonliness and boredom were transported as I held your book in my hands. But, now what am I to do? Read it again? Maybe I will. I have already recommended your book to many of my gal pals, but I will not share my copy. I cannot part with it. Thank you for giving me hope."
- On the Mend

This about made me want to weep. When people say things like that to you, it makes everything worth it. All the hours spent slaving over your keyboard, wallowing in self-doubt; the years spent as a temp receptionist dreaming of being a writer; the thousands of dollars spent on a publicist (who probably had nothing to do with On the Mend buying your book from Amazon); and just the all-around angst of trying to be a writer with a full-time job struggling to carve out the time to write.

Anyway. I know I've been going on and on about my readers like a broken record but I'll say again: this kind of response dazzles and overwhelms me in the best possible way. So thank you everyone, for letting me know how you feel about the book!

In other news, summer rushes along. I'm even tempted to tell you that it's now OK for you to ask me how my summer is going, and that if you did, you probably would probably not be subject to acts of violence; however, if I did that, I would undoubtedly jinx everything. So let's just keep the old rules in place for now.

xo
BB

Because I seem to be creatively bankrupt these days, instead of writing my own damn post, I’m going to offer you a hilarious take from Southern Comfort on the most DIFFICULT question I have to answer these days.

She writes,

...Another sticky wicket of a question is “How is your book doing?”

When my first novel came out I was bombarded with this question. And being an utter newbie I relied on Amazon for my answers and assumed my book was tanking like the Titanic. (Not by a mile, honey chile.)

I’d get all flustered and defensive as if they’d asked me “How’s the book doing… you pathetic wannabe?”

“ I don’t know how it’s doing. I won’t know until I get my royalty statements. QUIT HASSLING ME!”

Now if I’d made it to the bestseller list with my first novel I would have walked around wearing a sandwich board that said, “ Ask me how my book is doing.”

But there really is no good answer to this question. What can you say? I moved five hundred units last week? My mom and all my cousins bought multiple copies? I’m selling as many copies as the author of Seventy-five Recipes for Homemade Cheese.

After a while I finally understood that people were just being polite; they weren’t out to interrogate me. Now when asked this question, I just give a wink and say, “Not too shabby. Let’s put it this way. If I see a penny in the gutter, sometimes I won’t bother to fish it out.”

I am still in the defensive stage. I don’t KNOW how my damn book is doing. No one has told me and that is probably because it’s doing TERRIBLY and I am about to become persona-non-grata in the publishing world! I usually default to, “Well, lots of people are emailing me and telling me they like the book. I’m sure it’s about to become a word-of-mouth-favorite.”

I do have to say, that in lieu of any hard numbers, which are probably just depressing, that the reader response is the best thing that's been happening to me. It's kind of like the old days when I started this blog and all sorts of people wrote to say how much they loved it. The best part of being a writer is feeling like you've reached people. It's the most unexpected part too, 'cause you spend so much time toiling by yourself, you almost forget people are actually (if you're lucky) going to read what you write.

Oh! Here is an exciting tidbit. I have bookplates that I can sign for you. So, just in case I don't do that international tour, and you want a signed copy of BreakupBabe, e-mail me your address (breakupbabe@msn.com) and I will send you a signed bookplate. (Be patient because I am mailing-impaired.)

P.S. There are also still free books available for those who put up a banner ad or a blurb linking to my book on Amazon!

Love,
BB

Despite the frantic pace of the California leg of my book tour, and the cold which oh-so-conviently gripped me right before I came down here, I am enjoying my 15 minutes of fame. My reading at the venerable Black Oak Books last night was quite the good time, especially because 30 or so people showed up - the biggest turnout since my book launch party!

I also was extremely fond of the blurb that Black Oak Books put for my book on their Events page. I'll quote my favorite part here.

"By recasting her story as fiction, Rebecca Agiewich has created a fascinating admixture of autobiographical sincerity leavened with self-conscious, almost camp irony, a cri du coeur that peers over its own shoulder with a note of smiling post-modern glee, an honest novel of heartbreak and disappointment that is also the story of its own strange transformation from confession to literary confection."

I don't know what it means exactly, but it sure sounds good!

Besides the friendly staff, the great turnout, and the blurb that makes my book sound really fancy, I was also quite excited when - hanging around nervously before my event - I saw Frances McDormand walking out of the store. There is nothing more I love than a good celebrity sighting! I rushed back in and asked if she had bought my book (which she would then give to the Coen Brothers to turn into a darkly humorous cri de coeur looking over its shoulder or something) but no such luck.

I also appreciate this comment from Cristin, which you can see in the Comments section of the last entry, but which I thought I'd post for you here. Cristin notes a couple of the more "colorful" characters who were at the reading.

Just thought I would drop you a line to say you did a great reading in Berkeley tonight ( was was the girl who briefly mentioned to you I never comment on your blog - first time for everything eh?). My friend and I both thought you were very well spoken (but of course!), which is hard with a homeless person walking back in forth in front of you in the middle of your talk. Oh, and the guy who didn't know about blogging? He stores his chewing gum behind his ear as we in the audience were priveleged to witness.Great talk though!

Then at the crack of dawn, I hauled myself to San Francisco to be on CBS's "Weekend Early Edition," where I yukked it up with the anchors surprisingly well - considering it was 8 a.m., I was sick, and had had only fours hours of sleep, AND they didn't give me the questions beforehand. Usually for these 4-minute live TV dealies they at give you the list of questions a few minutes beforehand if you ask for them, but despite asking repeatedly this time, I did not get them. I thought about throwing a tantrum then thought better of it. In the end, I my level of witty banter was good. Ah yes, Xanax, thou art holy.

Signing off from the sunny South Bay,
love,
BB

Did you know that only 12 people came to hear Dan Brown read from the Da Vinci Code when he appeared at Third Place Books in Bothell, WA? Well, neither did I until the guy running my reading there last night told me. And guess what? I had 14 people! So THERE.

In other news, my pal Christy wrote in with the following funny anecdote:

“I climbed Mt Rainier this weekend and thought it would be funny to have my picture taken while reading your book on the summit. I packed your book and hauled it up to Ingraham Flats and decided at the last minute (1am yesterday morning) to leave it in my tent and not carry it up to the summit. To my utter amazement, I ran into a guy named Jim on the summit who had your book with him!!! On the summit!! I ran over to him and asked him if he knew you...told him I, too, had brought a copy of your book with me, but didn't haul it up to the summit. Long story short, I had my photo taken at the summit with a copy of your book, that actually belonged to a guy named Jim. I thought you might like to know that Breakup Babe has reached the summit of Rainier!!!”

A little background for those of you who haven’t read the book (and pray tell, why haven’t you?), there is a pivotal scene that takes place on Mt. Rainier, which is why (I guess) all my fans appear to be hauling it up there. Thanks guys! It’s so flattering to know you will hump that extra weight up the mountain to get your Breakup Babe fix. For those of you taking the book exotic places, for God’s sake, send me a picture and I’ll post it on the blog!

Um, in other, other, news, there is a bunch but I forget.

Oh YEAH. I’m going to California this week. If I don’t die in a plane crash before I get there please tell EVERYONE YOU KNOW IN CALIFORNIA to please come see me read, because I gotta keep up the Dan Brown-beating STREAK.

Cali Schedule
Friday, July 14, 7:30 p.m.
Black Oak Books
1491 Shattuck
Berkeley, CA

Sunday, July 16, 3 p.m.
Books, Inc.
301 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA

Monday, July 17, 7:30 p.m.
Books, Inc.
2251 Chestnut St.
San Francisco, CA 94123


xo
BB

Upcoming Readings

Hello Dear Everyone,
Just want to make sure you know about my upcoming readings. I have two more in Seattle this summer and *three* in the Bay Area! Oh please come! Please bring all your friends. Please buy my book. I am contemplating doing a little midwest/east coast leg of the tour later this summer although I am rather afraid of what might happen to me in the heat. If you are from one of the following cities 1)Chicago 2)New York 3)Boston 4)DC, drop me a line and let me know if there's a good bookstore near you and if you think you could help me get oh, at least five people to a reading.

Monday, July 10, 7 p.m.
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA

Friday, July 14, 7:30 p.m.
Black Oak Books
1491 Shattuck
Berkeley, CA

Sunday, July 16, 3 p.m.
Books, Inc.
301 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA

Monday, July 17, 7:30 p.m.
Books, Inc.
2251 Chestnut St.
San Francisco, CA 94123

Thursday, August 17, 6:30 p.m.
Reception & Booksigning
Queen Anne Books
1811 Queen Anne Avenue, North
Seattle

So. We are ripping through the first third of July and the weather here is gray, gray, gray! That is all good.

Reader love continues to pour (ok, trickle) in via e-mail and I've posted some of your comments on my author web site. This week I also got a fabulous placement in the Seattle Weekly as the Read of the Week. I like the review, even if it isn't 100% glowing. Hey, I know my book isn't perfect, OK? But this writer made some good points about the novel that even I hadn't thought of. And now EVERYONE IN SEATTLE IS GOING TO BUY MY BOOK!

In "love" news, which is what all you vultures care about, well...

I hesitate to tell you anything, because damn it, I thought I'd left that all behind me. But f*ck if I'm not torn between just going back to my old ways because I was all good for six months when I was dating that, um, guy, and look where it got me?

I know that unless I dismantle this blog competely, I will always be tempted to tell all. And telling all is just not healthy. Too bad it's so f*cking fun.

Why just last week I denied you all a good bit of fun when the Cute Construction Worker (CCW) posted a witty comment upon reading my breathy little post about him (who knew he was reading it?). Oh, maybe some of you saw it. I put it up his comment for a few hours then freaked out and took it down remembering that grim day last November when "Anonymous" commented on the blog for all to see (before I learned how to moderate my comments) that the guy I was dating was still f*cking his ex.

This was a much more fun and lighthearted interaction but spectacle is spectacle. Do I really want to make a spectacle of myself? (Yes.)

Anyway, the CCW has proved himself to be quite a witty and charming sort but somewhat on the elusive side so...we're not holding our breath on that one. Perhaps if we're lucky he'll post another well-written comment and this time I'll publish it because it's summer and I have to get through it somehow.

Meanwhile, I need an intern. If you would like to do menial tasks such as clean my car, pay my bills, install blinds, e-mail my ex-boyfriend and tell him he no longer needs to mail me that key because I made a bunch of copies, and also establish a viral online marketing campaign that will rocket my book to bestsellerdom, apply now! No pay but glamous entree into the world of publishing!

love,
bb