We're baaaack from our book tour. Actually, we each arrived home over a week ago, but we took a much needed mental, physical and social media break (more on that in a minute). And now we're refueled and recharged and ready to share 7 things we learned while "on the road."
(Oh, and because we love you all so much, we're doing a giveaway. Just leave a comment on this post and be entered to win a surprise bundle of 10 books! The contest will close on Saturday, July 5 at 8am PST.)
1. Our readers are effing amazing!
We already knew you guys were amazing, but now we're putting an effing in front of that word because you showed up at our events! Not that we doubted you would want to be there, but we were a little nervous that only our Moms would actually fill the seats. Because everyone is so busy--especially in the summer-- and taking even a couple hours out of your schedule is a lot. So we want to say THANK YOU for putting us on your list of things to do. It means the world. And it also saved us loads of potential embarrassment.
PS: Not to get too greedy, but while we're on the subject of how amazing you are :), if you've read and liked Your Perfect Life, we would be crazy thankful if you'd post a review on Amazon or on Goodreads. As you all know, positive reviews really, really help! And for those of you who have already done so, THANK YOU.
2. And so are other authors!
We feel so lucky to have so much support from other authors. Not only did they blurb our novel and give us shout outs when our book published, but several of them also participated in events with us and even showed up at them too! It's such a wonderful community of writers and we feel so fortunate to be a part of it. We could never list all of your names, but you know who you are and we love you! xoxo
3. We can talk with our eyes!
Have y'all seen How I Met Your Mother? Those guys have entire conversations with their eyes. And we discovered that we can do it too. Thank gawd! Because we were able to handle some sticky situations with no more than a few words spoken silently between our eyeballs. Like when we were being interviewed and that interviewer seemed to think our book was non-fiction and we had a holy shit how do we save this? mental chat. Or when we were at Rick Springfield's book signing and, at the last minute, we had a subliminal talk about how we should thrust one of our signed books upon him!
4. A slight head tilt can save the day!
We've never taken so many pictures in our lives! And a very smart author friend warned us that you will learn VERY fast how to take a good picture. So, after many, many, many terrible attempts, we finally figured out that a slight tilt of the head toward the person you are standing next to can do wonders for your face in a photo. Although when your eyes are closed and the pic still gets posted, there's no saving that. But at least it won't look like you have seventeen chins! (It feels weird to post a picture of ourselves that we think is good, so just take our word for it, k?)
5. Stick to one cocktail before an event!
We were a little nervous before our first few events, not knowing what to expect. So we might have said yes to a second drink before we were scheduled to "go on." While it definitely loosened us up, we may have been having a little too much fun out there. (We also blame the hand-held microphones that made us feel far more important than we actually are!) Our apologies to a certain someone (Liz's Mom!) we poked fun at for coming in late. We hope we made up for it when we thanked you for bringing 10 people? And a big thanks to the several people who said we should have our own sitcom. (See, it wasn't all bad!)
6. We can survive 3 weeks together!
We have to admit we were pretty worried about spending so much time together. So we took a lot of precautions to help us get through it. We didn't stay together every night, we never spoke or texted or even looked at each other before being caffeinated and we made sure to be as agreeable and flexible as possible. (We learned a lot from the mistakes made at BEA 2013! Remember Diary of a Debut: New York City edition?) And we almost made it all the way through without so much as a disagreement. Until the very last day together when we got into over, what we'll refer to as, "the great soap debate of 2014." It's a long story but all you need to know is that someone brought someone else Starbucks an hour later and all was right in the world again.
7. We got pretty damn sick of ourselves!
In the weeks surrounding our publication, a lot was going on. And of course we wanted to share it all with you. But it finally got to a point where we couldn't upload one more photo, compose one more tweet or so much as look at our Liz and Lisa author page on Facebook. Enough was enough. We. Had To. Stop. So we took a week off to give us (and you!) a break. And we think it was a good decision, because we can now upload a pic to Instagram without spending 15 minutes debating whether the Amaro or the Sierra filter is best. (We were looking pretty tired there toward the end!)
Thanks again for everything! This has been an amazing journey which would never have been possible without your support!