Just over a week ago I was involved in an absolutely fabulous book
event, BookBuzz Toronto. It’s taken me awhile to write this recap, in part,
because I’m still in awe that it happened. (The other part is that I’ve been traveling
all over the province and have also been hit with a cold.)
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| The sign that greeted us outside the bar. |
BookBuzz started when authors Samantha Stroh Bailey, Meredith Schorr,
and Francine LaSala decided to hold an event in New York City this past May
during the week of Book Expo America (BEA). It was a hit so Sam, Lydia Laceby
(author and fellow blogger), and I decided to bring the event north of the
border. BookBuzz Toronto was born!
For the past few months, Sam, Lydia, and I were planning this event and
trying to make it the best possible event it could be. This planning resulted
in hundreds of emails and lots of little inside jokes. We picked venue pretty
early on and settled on The Crest, a great bar on St. Clair West. I actually
had to trust Sam and Lydia on this decision as I wasn’t able to get into the
city to see the bar before the night of the event. They did a great job in
securing this place because I think the décor and feel of the bar was perfect
for what we were going for.
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| Chandeliers and brick. Love. |
The fun part of planning this event was reaching out to authors to see
who would want to attend. We were really lucky that the majority of the authors
we talked to were so excited and were more than willing to take part. Yay! We
had ten authors to promote and we were thrilled. The authors involved in
BookBuzz Toronto were:
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| Back, from left: Lydia, me, Heather, Chantel Front, from left: Romi, Meredith, Cat, Sam, Samantha, Kate |
The majority of the authors were coming from the GTA but we had some
traveling large distances to come to our event. (Even I live well out of the
Toronto area.) Cat came from Montreal, Meredith from New York City, and Samantha
March from Iowa. Francine is also from New York but a last minute family crisis
kept her at home (we missed you, Francine!).
Being able to meet these authors was like a dream come true for me as
these ladies have written some of my favourite books. If you’re reading this
you’re probably a huge book lover like me so you can understand what it’s
like to be able to meet some of your favourite authors at one event. Amazing. I
have to admit that I’m quite proud of myself for being involved in an event
that brought all of these authors together for others to enjoy as well (though
there’s no way I could have done it without Sam and Lydia!).
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| From left: Cat, Meredith, Samantha, Chantel, Me, Heather |
Since I have an events background, I prepared myself for something to
go wrong (Murphy’s Law!) but we were so lucky that the little snags were
incredibly minor. The biggest thing that affected me was trying to get to the
venue on time. Lots of traveling that day (I had picked up Samantha at the
Buffalo airport) and brutal traffic had us getting to the venue with only about
a half hour to spare. But, like I said, there were only minor issues and we all
sighed with relief at the end of the night when we realized nothing major went
wrong and everyone seemed to have a great time. Woo!
I wanted to incorporate a bit of a formal element to the mix and mingle
event and have all the authors be introduced and explain what the night was all
about. That translated into me, the only non-author involved, having to do the
speech and pronounce everyone’s names. I don’t do public speaking if I can help
it but I squared my shoulders, drank a delicious Pink Stiletto (or two) and
braved the microphone. I think it went well but I was definitely able to
breathe a little easier after that part was over!
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| Our signature drink, the Pink Stiletto. Yum. |
My other job was to help Kathryn, my fellow blogger at Novel Escapes,
with the book sale table. I am so incredibly grateful that she was there
because I found myself away from the table more often than not. She was a
superstar! We were both lucky that we had read the majority of the books for
sale and we could confidently recommend them to anyone looking to purchase a
book…or two, or three. They were only $10! I actually bought quite a few myself
as Christmas presents for my girlfriends. I’m so glad they read! I had my
favourite titles, of course, but I don’t think anyone could go wrong with any
of the books we had for sale.
I want to give a shout out to our awesome sponsors. The week before the
event NOW Magazine put an ad in their magazine for us and The Crest was a huge
help to us as well. Their food was fabulous (from what I was told…I honestly
didn’t eat much!) and I loved what they did with our Pink Stilettos (pink
lemonade and vodka in a sugar rimmed champagne glass with a raspberry
garnish…yum!). Huge thanks go out to our main sponsors Kobo Writing Life (they
even donated a Kobo to be given away!) and Wattpad. We couldn’t have had this
event without their support!
There’s so much more I can say about this event but I don’t even know
where to start. Like I said, I’m still in awe that I was able to meet these
ladies in person. We made the most of our time together though and a few of us
went out for brunch the next day and did some wandering around the city. Well,
more talking and less wandering, to be honest! I was also tasked with showing
Samantha Niagara Falls (I live in St. Catharines and she’d never been to Canada
before, let alone the Falls, so she stayed with me on Friday) and I loved being
able to see her face as she witnessed the awesomeness that is Niagara Falls. I
also have to say that I am so happy that my mom and sister made the trek to the
event. They live a couple of hours north of the city and did not have to come
but they did and I’m so glad. My sister was actually the one who took the
majority of the pictures you see in this post!
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| Left: I can't believe I actually spoke at the event. Ack! :) Right: Lindsey from Random House of Canada stopped by! |
Sadly, though, the event had to come to an end, we had to say goodbye, and we had to go back to our regular lives. It’s almost harder to have a purely virtual relationship with these authors since we’ve
now met in person. We’re all hopeful that we can meet up again in NYC in
May during BEA and for another edition of BookBuzz (keep your fingers crossed
that I get a job as I want to spend my birthday in New York!). Until then,
we’ll have to settle for email and social media and for reading their fabulous
books.
Other recaps:
