Interrupting my anecdotes of #BookFest for a quick post about a surprise discovery I made tonight…I went to Barnes & Noble in Glendale tonight because they sent me a coupon which was about to expire. So I went in and bought LEGO. (Be glad I don’t blog about me and LEGO).
While I was there I noticed a display for House of Secrets and there was an autographed copy sticker on it. It’s not unusual that before a new book comes out, the publisher gets the author to sign a bunch of pages which are then inserted into books to there are a bunch of signed copies which get sent to bookstores. That’s probably how I have John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars. But usually when that happens, you don’t get ugly store autographed stickers. And I opened the book and looked at the signature. Large. In sharpie. Which probably meant … no… it couldn’t.
It couldn’t mean that sometime between Tuesday when I came in the day the book came out and Sunday six days later that Ned Vizzini came into this Barnes & Noble and signed stock… He’s been elsewhere! I remember he was in New York earlier this week. It would be … so… unlikely… right?
So I tweeted him.
I was still looking for LEGO to purchase… I’m holding off on purchasing any Star Wars sets for May the Fourth (traditional sale promotions offered from LEGO on LEGO Star Wars sets) and I already have a lot of the Architecture sets…I ended up with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle set.
Then I went closer to the YA section and I saw this display. Took a picture to play my favorite twitter game, “Where is Where Things Come Back?”
But do you know what I see? MORE AUTOGRAPHED STICKERS. On Ned’s book turned into a movie, It’s Kind of a Funny Story. I went over to the shelf and also found copies of The Other Normals. *sigh* So yeah, Ned Vizzini came into the store and signed EVERYTHING. But I had missed him. He confirmed on twitter:
@davidshead that’s right David that actually happened, thank you for taking that picture because I didn’t get one!
— Ned Vizzini (@ned_vizzini) April 29, 2013
Yup. I purchased It’s Kind of a Funny Story and The Other Normals. It’s generally a nice surprise when an author signs stock. Something I would like to encourage. My frustrations at getting House of Secrets signed just continues…