Dating Librarians

I swear you are going to think that I will never get to the conference considering all the things happening around the conference. But, yes, I am planning on getting there very soon, though I have to tell you all about my evening Speed Dating Librarians, which was set up as part of the prefunction madness that is Emerald City Writers Conference.

With so many authors in town, the goal is to gather as many Washington librarians as we can smoke out of their book stacks and get them to come to a reception, so we can dazzle them with our wit. But this time the folks who set this up did things a little differently. Instead of all of us standing around with that usual drink in one hand, brownie in the other, and trying to figure out how to shake hands and give a librarian a bookmark without spilling on yourself, or worse, them, this time we did it speed dating style: two authors in a specific genre manned a table and the librarians came to us, asking us questions, getting to know us before the bell rang, and they had to move on to the next author. Quite frankly, it was loads of fun with no spillage.



One of the first questions out of the librarians was “When my readers have finished reading all of Elizabeth Boyle's books, what should they do?” Well, first, they should go out and buy copies for all their friends for the holidays, but, after that, Author Assistant to the rescue.


So, there I was with fellow Avon Author Jenna Petersen (L) at my side and the two of us made a point of telling the librarians about the Author Assistant at HarperCollins.com. Nothing like having a virtual wingman at our side, giving us an edge over the rest of the room.

“You've got to try it,” we urged them, sharing our favorite parts of the site (author fun photos, favorites and that spidey thing that recommends other authors.) We were sirens to those librarians, giving them a virtual tool to help their readers and like the rest of us, waste a good portion of the day surfing around and finding out all kinds of little tidbits and insights we never knew about all our fellow Avon Authors. Oh, yeah, we had them at “Hello.”

What is your favorite part of the new Author sites?

Elizabeth Boyle

2 Comments:

Blogger Erika said:

What fun, Elizabeth! The Emerald City conference is one of the best.

4:39 PM  

Blogger Elizabeth Boyle said:

It is fun, Erika! I love being able to have so many friends come to town and have a great conference. Are you coming again soon?

9:24 PM  

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