What is it like to go on book tour?

What IS it like to go on book tour? I was fortunate enough, this summer to experience the whirlwind of the Dark Days  book tour. 

I was fortunate enough to be part of the Dark Days of the Supernatural tour, see the promo poster above? Which is a tour consisting of Harper Collins authors.

The tour coincided with BEA (Book Expo America) which is a whirlwind in itself. I spoke on a panel about he Evolution of YA with Elizabeth Norris and Melissa Marr, as well as other amazing authors, and then on Wednesday was part of a signing at BEA. Now, I don't kid myself that the excitement and lining up (people were in line hours before the signing) was for me! Veronica Roth was there, and Divergent and Insurgent are huge right now, and Aprilynne Pike's Wings series are bestsellers, and I had actually read Unravelling by Elizabeth Norris and LOVED it. I actually think the group tour is a great idea because it can get many readers into the bookstore, and it gives the authors a support network...not so high pressure as some signings.

So the day that the tour began, I went to the Javits center early for the YA authors breakfast. The Giver is one of my all time favorite books (of all time, yes I know that was redundant. I don't care). Hearing Ms. Lowery speak was inspiring and amazing. After that I spend a few hours trying to figure out why my cell phone wouldn't work, which was not a good use of my time, but I was afraid to stray far, because my cell phone wasn't working, what if I somehow missed my signing. When I wondered back to the Harper Collins booth an hour early, the line for our signing was stretched around and through the building.

Okay, so I don't remember much about that signing, except that I signed 150 books in about an hour. With a sharpie. I do not like writing with sharpies, but my own pens were in a cabinet, and stopping the line to get a pen would have been disastrous to the progress of the line.

Here I am posing for a picture! See the piles of books in the back? 

So, I said that sitting around staring at my defunct cell phone wasn't smart, right? It wasn't, because as soon as this even was over we were whisked off to a driver, who took us to the train station because we had a signing that evening in Philadelphia. 

Do we look tired? We were! We barely had time to stop and eat before the event, and even then ended up taking our food with us! 

The next morning we were on a plan to Columbus Ohio. That night we signed at the wonderful Cover to Cover bookstore. 

Then we were off again to Chicago. Luckily we got to stay two nights in Chicago, doing an event in Evanston and then to Printer's Row Literary Festival. 

By Sunday morning I was exhausted and ready to go home, but it was a fabulous experience and I'm so glad that Harper Collins and Greenwillow invited me to be a part of it.