Literary Lancaster!

When we mention to those outside the are we're a bookstore in Lancaster County, three guesses what the first association is and the first two don't count.... yep, "oh you mean Amish area".  Those closer to us think Amish, plus corn fields... but there is a true burgeoning literary arts scene in this part of the state and we're excited to play a big part in it.  This Fall is looking to be a stellar line up of author appearances around Lancaster County.... perhaps a list to rival most urban areas.  Here's a run down of the next 4 months of author events (or at least the ones we know about!)

August 25
Tea With Author Susan Gregg Gilmore at Aaron's Books

4pm; Free, reservations requested due to limited seating
A store and area favorite Susan Gregg Gilmore returns to celebrate the release of her second novel, The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove. Set in Nashville, during the 1960's and 70's this book is sure to be discussed for years to come. Bezellia Grove is the oldest daughter of one of Nashville's most revered families. A family that has many secrets, perhaps with Bezellia's love of their African American handy-man's son being the biggest. This a a great book for those that loved The Help. Susan's first book, Looking For Salvation at The Dairy Queen, was our best selling adult fiction title of 2009. Susan will be joining us for an afternoon of tea and discussion.




August 26
Back To School Night with 2010 Scott O'Dell Award Winner At Aaron's Books
6-8pm
Teachers, librarians, and PTA officers are invited to meet authors Matt Phelan and Mara Rockliff, and learn more about the services we offer for schools and non-profits. Guests will also get a sneak peek at books coming in the fall and winter, and be able to pre-order them for the classroom at a deep discount! All in store purchases that evening are 20% off!  Space is limited, so reservations are required. Call 627-1990.


September 10-12
2nd Annual Lititz Kid-Lit Festival

Building upon the popularity of the store’s first festival in 2009, Aaron’s Books is expanding the event locations, adding a fundraiser for local literacy programs, and providing a focus on diversity in children’s literature. Scheduled events for the weekend include a local author’s night, story time with picture book authors and illustrators and special guest Mother Goose, open signing times with the authors, a panel discussion on diversity in literature, an editing workshop for aspiring writers, and a dinner with authors to raise funds for Lancaster Reach Out and Read programs. All events are open to the public and all are free except the Saturday dinner.

Authors Appearing- Mitalie Perkins, Laurel Snyder, Amy Wummer, Eric Wight, Amy Ignatow, Suzanne Supplee, Cyn Balog, Josh Berk, A.S. King, Holly Nicole Hoxter, Vicky Burkholder, Chrysa Smith, Ruth Zavitsanos, Susan McKain & Sandy Swann, Matt Royer






September 29
Taylor Branch
Lancaster Literary Guild, Lancaster Interchurch Peace Witness, and Bright Side Opportunities Center welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Taylor Branch. His lecture, “Forty Years after Martin Luther King: Looking Ahead,” will be held at Bright Side Baptist Church, 515 Hershey Ave., Lancaster at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, September 29.  Taylor Branch is the author of the highly acclaimed King Era Trilogy: Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge. That series is far from his only published works, though. In 2010 Branch published The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, a work based on seventy-nine confidential conversations with President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001.


October 16
Launch Party for Vera Dietz at Aaron's Books
Aaron’s Books hosts the national release of author A.S. King’s new YA novel Please Ignore Vera Dietz with an evening of refreshment, live music, and a reading by A.S. King. This event is free. Call or visit Aaron’s Books for reservations or information.


October 17
Eileen Clymer Schwab, 11am
 Eileen Clymer Schwab Eileen will join Aaron's Books' Books & Brunch Book Group to discuss her debut novel, Promise Bridge, a historic novel of the Underground Railroad and friendship.

October 21
Bestselling Author Beth Hoffman
Co-sponsored by the Council of Friends of the
Lancaster Public Libraries
Thursday, October 21, 6:30pm at the Cork Factory Hotel
Aaron’s Books & the Council of Friends brings bestselling author Beth Hoffman to Lancaster for an evening of refreshments and a reading by the author, as well as an exclusive early release of the paperback edition of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt.   Tickets $20. Contact Ronnie Kepchar at 569-6850 to purchase tickets.




October 22
Monster Bash!
With NY Times Bestselling zombie author Jonathan Maberry

Friday, October 22, 6pm
Celebrate American Library Association’s Teen Read Week with pizza and readings by NY Times Bestseller and multiple Bram Stoker Award winner Jonathan Maberry from his new teen zombie novel Rot & Ruin. Teens and the young at heart are invited come as their favorite dead, living dead, or un-dead book character. Sparkly vampires not invited. Proceeds will be donated to teen programs of the Lancaster County Public Libraries.  Tickets $7. Call or visit Aaron’s Books for reservations or information. Costumes not required.




November 9
Evening With The Author of "The Shack", William Young

Tuesday, Nov 9 7:00pm
at Lancaster Bible College and Graduate School, Lancaster, PA
 Parish Resource Center of Lancaster is bringing William Paul Young, author of the bestselling novel "The Shack", to speak in the Chapel Auditorium of Lancaster Bible College. This book has been a New York Times best seller for more than two years. This is a Benefit Event for the Parish Resource Center of Lancaster.


November 12
Jeanette Walls
Jeanette will be joining the Junior League of Lancaster at its 2010 Author’s Luncheon on Friday, November 12 at the Lancaster Marriott and Convention Center.
Critics have called Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, “spectacular,” “extraordinary,” “incredible,” and “riveting.” It has been a New York Times best-seller for more than three years, has sold more than two million copies, been translated into 16 languages, and is being made into a movie by Paramount. Walls’ follow-up to The Glass Castle, Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel, was released in October 2009, and was an immediate New York Times best-seller.  Tickets for the Author’s Luncheon will go on sale in September.


November 12
Local Author Night at Aaron's Books
Appearing at part of Lititz's 2nd Friday Festivitities will be regional authors Mike Silvestri, Kim Kluxen Meredith and several other to be named.

November 14
Bestselling author Joyce Hinnefeld, 7pm
Aaron's Books
Joyce Hinnefeld author of In Hovering Flight and a professor at Moravian College will be joining us for coffee and dessert and to discuss her new novel Stranger Here Below.






So not a bad Fall line-up right?  There are many more literary events planned for the remaining months of 2010 here in Lancaster County.  The Lancaster Literary Guild has a great line up of author related exhibits and discussions. The Philadelphia Alumni Writer's House at Franklin & Marshall College always has wonder speakers and workshops.  Millersville University usually brings in some fabulous academic writers and speakers.  Plus the chain stores will probably have one or two mega-watt conservative memoir writers coming (in the past Mike Huckabee and Karl Rove have appeared there... whatever people may say about them, their appearances DID get people into a bookstore!) And don't forget to check out the calendar of events at your local library!

So Happy Reading and Happy Author Eventing!

What's New This Week, Last Week of June

What is New on Our Shelves This Week.

Echo in The Bone by Diana Gabaldon is finally out in paperback! In this new epic of imagination, time travel, and adventure, Diana Gabaldon continues the riveting story begun in Outlander.  With one foot in America and one foot in Scotland, Jamie and Claire’s adventure spans the Revolution, from sea battles to printshops, as their paths cross with historical figures from Benjamin Franklin to Benedict Arnold.  Diana Gabaldon’s sweeping Outlander saga reaches new heights in An Echo in the Bone.

Sisters of Hardscrabble Bay by Beverly Jensen
In 1916, Idella and Avis Hillock live on the edge of a chilly bluff in New Brunswick-a hardscrabble world of potato farms and lobster traps, rough men, hard work, and baffling beauty. From "Gone," the heartbreaking story of their mother's medical crisis in childbirth, to the darkly comic "Wake," which follows the grown siblings' catastrophic efforts to escort their father, "Wild Bill" Hillock's body to his funeral, the stories of Idella and Avis offer a compelling and wry vision of two remarkable women. The vivid cast includes Idella's philandering husband Edward, her bewilderingly difficult mother-in-law- and Avis, whose serial romantic disasters never quell her irrepressible spirit. Jensen's work evokes a time gone by and reads like an instant American classic.

Beverly Jensen died of cancer at the age of forty-nine without publishing her work. Since her death, her fiction has been championed by a dedicated group of supporters, including Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates.

Our Red Hot Romance is Leaving Me Blue by Dixie Cash
Dixie Cash is one of Sam's favorite romantic comedy authors, so hold onto your hats for a hilarious romp!
Full-time hairdressers and part-time private detectives, Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin—the Domestic Equalizers—have dealt with cheating spouses, shady business deals, Elvis-obsessed shoe thieves, even murder. But ghosts? That's a whole new rodeo!  Justin Sadler's just coming to terms with the absence of his dear departed Rachel—but now he's not so sure she's departed! Every time he goes home he knows someone's been there—and if it's not Rachel trying to communicate from beyond, it's someone else who's trying to drive him stark raving bonkers. So the Equalizers are on the case, with the help of an El Paso psychic who's so dead-on, it's scary. It's enough to make any good ol' gal's big hair stand on end!

Plus HUNDREDS of new classics.  Arriving last week to fill out our classic section to the maximum, was three boxes from Wordsworth Editions.  A majority of these classics are priced between $4.99 and $7.99... perfect for that student's summer reading list!

Self Publishing and Getting It RIGHT!

With the advent of new printing technologies, the internet and so forth, self publishing has become a much larger chunk of the book world in the past few years. First, what do I mean by self-publishing? in this case I’m referring to authors that pay a publisher a fee for printing the books, then are responsible for the sale of their own books to recoup their investment. In essence the author is now also the book tour coordinator, the publicist, the publisher relations manager, the sales representative, etc. etc. etc. We recently worked (and are still working with) at team of self published authors and illustrator, and they are a prime example of how to do it right.

We first met Susan in the Fall of 2009 (actually we really met before that, since she had shopped at our store, but that was before she was close to finishing a book). She and the illustrator of the book came to events and workshops at our first annul Lititz Kid-Lit Festival. They met with other published authors and illustrators and got an inside peek at the business. We then engaged in several preliminary conversations with them about carrying the book when they got it finished and printed.

Over the course of the next 5 ½ months we spoke with Susan about pricing, advertising, distributions, getting the book to reviewers, and hosting a launch party. Susan wisely used her local bookstore for guidance through the publishing process and as a resource to help promote the book before it hit the stands. We talked in detail about pricing- what was a good price for this area, for this type of book, what is too high what minimum would they need to make back their investment (all things a “real;” publisher does in-house, but self-published authors need to consider before the book is out). Then we shifted to where should it sell (oversaturation can make a book’s sales drop), bookstores report to BookScan (a weekly report of book sale numbers, that publishers use to decide what to by from an author, what to re-print, what to publicize etc.), gift stores do not; what other stores in town are a match- toy store- yes, soap store- no. Then we tackled how to release it- one day party at the store, then book available elsewhere the next day. We (the store) did the press releases for the event, and sent out newsletters, emails, and social media updates.

What did all this working together get this book? 2 large feature newspaper articles, one TV appearance, over 200 books sold in one day at one store (to compare, this year’s Pulitzer in fiction winner sold 7,000 in 10 months in ALL the book and online stores before it's big win was announced). It also brought author and bookstore together for what will be a multi-year relationship. It brought a community together to support a new book. It brought friends in from out of town that Susan hadn’t seen in years. It brought people into our store that work a block away and didn’t even know we existed. It was a win-win for everyone involved.

This was self-pubbing done RIGHT!

For more about Tugger, visit our FaceBook page to see pictures from the release party.  For more on the Do's and Dont's of working with a local bookstore, see our previous post "You Say You've Written a Book..."

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Distinctive INDIE Lititz

Today was a pretty big day in our little hamlet. The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced Lititz as one of its Distinctive Destinations of 2009. Those of us that live and work here of course said "duh" :) So here is a little blog of town gloating.

Todd and I are still viewed by some locals as "outsiders" since we've only been here for 4 years... but we CHOOSE Lititz. We picked up our family and moved TO Lititz, BECAUSE of Lititz. We love this town. As an Army Brat growing up on military bases and small German towns, I fell in love with this town. Why? For the very reason that was mentioned by every speaker at the press conference today: community. Around this nation developers are killing trees, moving wild animals, and buying up farms to create new "false" communities, while towns like Lititz have it naturally. When people watch re-runs of Leave It to Beaver & Andy Griffith, some long for that town life where kids can walk to the corner store owned by "Mr. Jones" and get candy on their way home from school. Where they can freely ride their bikes to the park to play and feed the ducks, without having to check in with mom on the cell phone every 10 minutes, or having a parental escort. Where you can sit on your front porch and say "howdy" to all that walk past (and know at least half of them). Well, folks I have that... here in Lititz; and I wouldn't change it for the world. (yes, this is the same city gal Sam from a few years back, commuting and working in DC!).

What makes Lititz distinctive though is not it's history as observed by the Historic Trust (and yes, we do have our history, from it's Moravian roots 250+ years ago), but it is what makes up the town now- INDIES. This town only has one non-locally owned business.. and that one "chain" kept their building to match the historic nature of the town, and has no glaring neon signage... so unless you know it's there, you would miss it. This is a true INDIE town, even on the outskirts of town, you'll find vibrant indie groceries and hardware stores. Not to mention farms, service businesses, and restaurants. If we truly want to build better communities across America, we really need to look no further than Lititz, and not at some developers planning board.

So while the Historic Trust gives us this great title for our historic preservation, we need to toot our INDIE horn as well. What makes Lititz distinctive is the history... what makes the history is the community.... and what makes the community is our support of local independent businesses!

Below are pictures from the press conference, including the actual award and a citation from the PA House of Representatives acknowledging Lititz in all it's distinction :)