BookExpo Canada

Busy three days, all related to BookExpo Canada.

On Saturday, Danita Maslan, author of the novel Rogue Harvest, which I published under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint, flew to Toronto from Calgary, and Carolyn and I picked her up at the airport. Saturday night, we hosted a reception for the authors I've published under my imprint, which was a huge success.

Sunday morning, we headed down to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (same place the 2003 Worldcon was held) and did a group signing at the Fitzhenry and Whiteside booth at BookExpo Canada. All of my authors were on hand: Marcos Donnelly, Andrew Weiner, Karl Schroeder, Danita Maslan, and Nick DiChario, plus Terence M. Green, whose book I will publish next.

We had the single best giveaway at all of BookExpo this year, by far: normally, if you stand in line at a booth for an autographing, you get one book (and all the books are free at BookExpo -- the idea is to get them into the hands of booksellers, so they'll learn about your wares). But those lucky people who came to the Fitzhenry and Whiteside booth got SIX books each -- two hardcovers and four trade paperbacks.

Sharon Fitzhenry really wanted to show the industry that Robert J. Sawyer Books had arrived, and so everyone got an autographed copy of my short-story collection Iterations (the book that began my association with Red Deer Press, which is now owned by Fitzhenry and Whiteside) and an autographed copy of Karl Schroeder's short-story collection The Engines of Recall and an autographed copy of Marcos Donnelly's novel Letters from the Flesh and an autographed copy of Andrew Weiner's novel Getting Near the End and an autographed copy of Danita Maslan's novel Rogue Harvest and an autographed copy of Nick DiChario's novel A Small and Remarkable Life.

Later that afternoon, there was a celebration of Fitzherny's 40th anniversary -- woohoo!

Sunday night, we took Danita back to the airport, but I went into BookExpo again today (the trade show runs for two days). Ran into lots of great people. Among others I chatted with Ruth and John Robert Colombo, Rick Blechta, the president of the Crime Writers of Canada; Brian Bethune, the books editor for Maclean's; Martin Levin, the books editor for The Globe and Mail; lots of people from H.B. Fenn and Company (who just signed a new six-year agreement to keep distributing Tor books in Canada); Michelle Sagara West (who was autographing copies of her latest reissue from BenBella); agent John Pearce; Cynthia Good, who used to be publisher of Penguin Canada; Jonathan Schmidt, formerly of Tor and now managing editor of Key Porter Books; two recent Canadian Writers of the Future prize winners; big-name fan Lloyd Penney, who was working at the show; and many, many more. All in all, a great few days -- but exhausting!