Today, I got a call from a local library wanting me to come and do a talk/book signing. This is funny, since when Karma Girl first came out in 2007, I went to said library, talked to the director, dropped off my info and some bookmarks, and asked to set up a signing. Oh yes, the director said, we’d love to have you.

But nobody ever called me back. I even called and left a couple of messages for the woman who arranged the book signings — and still nobody ever called me back.

So am I going to do the book signing now? After two years have passed? Sure. Because I love books and libraries and talking about books. People are busy, and stuff falls through the cracks all the time. It happens.

But the weird thing is that it seems to happen to me more than other folks.

When another one of my books came out (I can’t remember if it was Hot Mama or Jinx), I tried to set up a signing at my local Barnes & Noble. I dropped off some info and bookmarks for the community relations manager. I called, left messages, and even talked to her on the phone at one point. And she never called me back to see about setting up a time for a signing.

But the strangest example is probably this one. A few years ago, I pitched a cozy murder mystery to an editor at a conference. I sent her the book and got a rejection letter about six months later. I thought that was strange because I knew the book was pretty good and it seemed to be what the editor was looking for. Still, that seemed to be the end of things, and I let it go and worked on other projects.

Then, one day out of the blue, the editor calls me and says that she had some problems with her assistant (who left the company or something) and that she wants me to resubmit the manuscript. Which I do. A few months pass, and I don’t hear anything, so I assume that the editor didn’t like it any better than her assistant did.

Then, one day out of the blue, the same editor calls me and offers me a contract for the murder mystery. Shocked the hell out of me because, at this point, something like two years had passed since I first pitched the manuscript to her at a conference. By this point, I had an agent and I think we’d sold Karma Girl. So the murder mystery never saw the light of day.

Lots of folks think that when you get a book published that you’ve got it made. But the truth is that you don’t. Especially me, who always seems to get things two years too late. Hey, maybe this is my own special kind of Jinx … :rolleyes: