Meg Cabot Book Signing!

I follow @megcabot on Twitter and yesterday, she posted that she was having a book signing in Seattle for her new release, Overbite (sequel to Insatiable). Woot! I was so there!

I'd only ever been to one signing before (Diana Gabaldon's for the release of An Echo In the Bone- and it was huuuuuuge- well, at least I thought so). Since I'm going to be having my own signing for Between in a month (8/17 at 7pm at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, WA), I wanted to pick up some tips on how this signing stuff is supposed to go down.

I don't think I'll be able to top Meg Cabot's performance, though. She was a riot! It really was a performance, and she played to the audience of mostly-late-teen-early-twenties-females beautifully. She told stories about her life prior to becoming famous, that she was a terrible student and went to art school (able to get in because her dad taught there), and then not being able to get a job as an illustrator when she graduated.

She was working as an administrative assistant for the college dorms (because she could type fast) when The Princess Diaries got picked up by Whitney Houston's production studio (even though no one wanted to publish the book at that time).

Meg has comedic timing and made all kinds of faces while she told her tales, which had the crowd roaring. But the thing that I enjoyed most was how she told all these women that she'd been rejected 1000 times and still kept writing because she loved to do it. She said that if there's something you really love, then you have to go after it, no matter what. A great message for me to hear (and for everyone else there) and hopefully one that resonates with you as well.

Thanks, Meg!