Hi there! :) I’ll be on the road tomorrow, and I’ll be giving a speech at the Sisters in Crime, Richmond Chapter on Sat., Dec. 1, at Gayton Library, 10600 Gayton Rd., Henrico, VA. I’ve been practicing my speech, and I think it’s pretty damn good for a slightly impaired gimpy crazy shy person.

Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about all sorts of things.

I even came up with a great review for this book:

Unfortunately, I came up with it while we were going to an appointment to have my “lady garden” examined tended to. Ha ha ha …

Anyway, I’ve managed to review and practice my speech. I think it makes sense, and hopefully I’ll manage to talk into the mic and not whisper or shout. :)

You’ll have to excuse me if I fumble with my papers a bit. I’ve got a gamey (sp?) hand, so it’s hard to shuffle papers. :)

And my foot is also constantly clenching, so I tend to stumble. Thank heavens I’ve learned to take everything less seriously.

Pin that sucker!!! I’m on Pinterest now! :)

And … if you could. Here’s the Facebook Page for my Sam McRae Mystery Series. Please “like” it. :)

And if you could contribute to the Sam McRae Mystery Series Indiegogo campaign that would be most awesome! :)

There are only 12 days left until the deadline, Dec. 10. Yikes! I’d really appreciate any support at all. Even $1. RTs and other support are great, too. Thank you! :)

Here are some links of possible interest:

Ann Patchett’s bookstore thrives in digital age. As Paul would say … hmm …!

Let’s quote the really weird awesome part, shall we?

Parnassus doesn’t sell ice. It does sell books, $2 million worth in the past year. Most were the old-fashioned kind, paper and ink.

Ask Patchett, 48, if she’s bucking a trend, and she defiantly says, “We are the trend.”

Until early last year, she had been busy enough just writing novels. Six in all, including her 1992 debut, The Patron Saint of Liars, set at a home for unwed mothers, and Bel Canto starring an American opera singer held hostage by Latin American terrorists, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2001.

Her latest, State of Wonder, about a research scientist sent to find her former mentor who has disappeared in the Amazon, landed at No. 12 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list last year and spent 28 weeks in the top 150.

But these days the best-selling novelist is a part-time bookseller.

Patchett, who credits her business partner, Karen Hayes, for doing much of the real work, spends a few hours at the store usually every other day. When she’s there, she plays literary “matchmaker,” as she puts it, introducing readers to books, one at a time, “better than any computerized algorithm.”

Sure, Ann, sure. However, it certainly helps to have a BIG platform, live in a rich community and be able raise lots of dough. Furthermore, I don’t see your Amazon Single, THE GETAWAY CAR, mentioned here. Is that how you’re cleaning up, lady?

What Patchett and Hayes have created out of a former tanning salon in a shopping center four miles south of downtown may seem retro. It’s an airy 3,150-square-foot store with 22,000 books and one piano (donated by a local musician, it’s used for monthly concerts).

An average Barnes & Noble “superstore” has 26,000 square feet for 125,000 titles, a prominent display of its Nook e-readers, but no pianos. And both Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com offer millions of books online — often at discounted prices that Parnassus doesn’t offer.

Patchett and Hayes say size matters — the lack of it. They say their store is big enough to offer a variety of titles, but not so large that “we lose a sense of intimacy, a human scale,” Hayes says.

As part of the American Booksellers Association’s digital partnership with Kobo, the store offers e-books, but they account for less than 1% of sales. Nor does the store, unlike some independents, sell Kobo’s e-readers. Hayes says, “We’re focusing on what we know best: books.”

She acknowledges that in terms of price and convenience, the store can’t match its main competition, Amazon, the online retailer. In the past decade, Amazon’s share of the book market, both print and e-books, jumped from 8% to 31%, says Albert Greco, a Fordham University professor who studies the book industry.

Okay … hold the phone, lady. Your bookstore is supported by Kobo, and they need to sell Kobo devices in order to compete with Amazon. But you don’t carry them? And you’re supporting Amazon by selling your book exclusively through them?

And I thought I was crazy. Ha!

There’s a message in here for everyone. :)

And from Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar, a scene I sincerely hope won’t happen to me on this trip! Ha ha ha …

Meanwhile, I’ve learned that I’m not a complete techno-idiot, even if I’m a gimp.

So … upgrades are in the offing. Video via Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar again!

And finally, from Nik Nak’s Old Peculiar, this awesome quote and video:

“Without The Miracles, Motown would not be the Motown it is today”

Berry Gordy Jr, born November 28, 1929

Thank you, Paul. You are a damn saint. :) But for your comment and my long-winded reply, I might never have seen the irony.

The awesome Paul.

Paul and me at THE Brentwood Library

UPDATE: I simply had to include these from today’s teaser post.

“The Value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity.”

C. S. Lewis,  29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963

And “When We Was Fab” — George Harrison was awesome.

“Hey, it’s a thingy. A fiendish thingy!”

“I know we’re here.”

“Not a bit like Cagney.”

Incidentally, there is a Brentwood, MD, too. :)