Meg's Diary

Author Guide To Surviving a Booktour, Tip #5

You know what's nice?

That I got home from book tour just in time for the first tropical storm of the season.

But whatever. Home is good no matter what the weather is doing outside!

Everyone so far has been very glad to see me. By everyone of course I mean He Who Shall Not Be Named in this Blog, and Henrietta. Henrietta spent the first 12 hours of my arrival home filling me in on every single detail of everything that happened while I was gone.

Unfortunately, because I don't speak Cat, I didn't understand a single word. It all came out sounding like, “Mrow. Mrow. Mrow. MROW. Mrow. MROW.”

She went on for so long that I was forced to lock her in the laundry room overnight (but don't worry, there is a guest room connected to the laundry room so she had a bed to sleep in) just so I could get some sleep.

This morning, when I let her out, she continued talking as if there'd been no interruption, and even followed me downstairs while I made breakfast, in order to talk to me some more. She is currently in her pillow fort on my bed, exhausted from all the non-stop chatter, and presumably feeling that I am up to speed.

Gem, or Jemima as I like to call her, was completely unimpressed by my homecoming, and, while I was catching up with missed episodes of Flip This House last night (is Richard from Trademark Properties a sociopath? Because I am pretty sure he is. In a nice way), proceeded to give me the equivalent of the kitty finger by climbing onto He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Blog's chest, and, looking at me very deliberately, rubbing her head against his heart.

I know! She is SUCH A SLUT!!!! She was totally all, “You may have come back, byotch, but he's still mine. ALL MINE. And don't you forget it.”

She is apparently unaware that I am the one who fed her tuna from the can when I mistook her for a stray last summer.

Anyway, now that my tour is over, I owe thanks many people, including Luisa, Bridget, Michelle, and Emily in Houston for the awesome cookies, and to Lisa in Vero Breach for the cool travel pack!

Thanks also to all the lovely booksellers and media escorts who helped make my signings such a success, and of course to the local media and to Harper publicity, not to mention the travel agency who allowed me to spend so much of my time running from one airport terminal to another to catch a flight there was no conceivable way any human being could ever possibly catch (however, I did catch them all, thanks to flight delays due to tornadoes. So thanks are also due to global warming!).

Now, moving on:

Here's an interview
with yours truly!

And Queen of Babble was part of a chick-lit
round up
in the Washington Post (apparently I have a PhD in princes).

And here's anothernice review.

And now, what you've all been waiting for (well, maybe not, but whatever) the final installment of Meg Cabot's Author Guide to Surviving a Booktour:

Meg Cabot's Author Guide to Surviving a Booktour Tip #5:
THE SELF LOATHING IS NORMAL.
I like to complain a lot about being on tour because it totally disrupts my writing schedule and freaks out my cat.

But when they put you up in fancy hotels on the beach, it's actually pretty sweet (although can I just say, what's the deal with no in-room wi-fi? And all the sport channels, and no Food Network? And the no-slip stickers at the bottom of the tub, which are VERY hard on bath-takers? I mean COME ON, HOTELIERS, women stay in your hotels too, you know.)

Still, no matter how nice of a hotel they put you up in, there's no escaping the terrible truth about book tours:

And that is that, if you are any sort of thinking human being—even if all you think about, like me, is that you missed the CHARMED series finale, and the fact that all signs indicate that as a nation we are about to plunge into a state of complete and total economic and social anarchy, and why didn't you learn to can fruit and/or plant a vegetable garden so you will have food to eat during the End Days?—you just can't stop hating yourself the whole time you're on the road.

This is because all you do—ALL YOU DO—when you are on a book tour is talk about yourself.

Seriously. THAT IS WHAT BOOK TOURS ARE FOR. You are trying to get people to buy your book.

So people want to interview you for the local papers or radio stations and stuff, during which you have to talk about yourself.

And of course, you also have to talk about yourself at your events. UNTIL YOU THINK YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY GO INSANE FROM TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF SO MUCH, AND YOU BEGIN TO FANTASIZE ABOUT BEING IN A SMALL VEHICULAR ACCIDENT
IN WHICH YOUR LIPS ARE DESTROYED AND YOU CAN NO LONGER FORMULATE WORDS UNTIL FINALLY A HANDSOME DOCTOR PLAYED BY ARMAND ASSANTE MAKES YOU NEW LIPS OUT OF YOUR YOU KNOW WHAT.

But not until your book tour is over.

This is normal. Don't worry about it. It will go away after a few days of being home and watching PANTS OFF DANCE OFF on Fuse.

Then you will feel ready to write your next book…which they will send you on a book tour for…thus starting the entire cycle ALL OVER AGAIN. IT'S THE CIRCLE OF BOOK TOURS.

Hey, but that's what this writing thing is all about, right? And, the self-loathing aside, I'm exceedingly grateful to my publisher—but especially my readers—for it.

More later.

Much love,

Meg

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