The signing. The proprietors of Mysterious Galaxy, (a small, very pleasant independent bookseller which specializes in Hard Sci-Fi and SFF) had everyone exit the store to prepare for the signing, as it required setting up two lines. Those who had already purchased a book, and been given a signing line number (Insectoid & Mom were #1 and #2, yours truly was #3) in one line, those who needed to purchase a book for signing in another. As most of you have read regarding other signing events, Brandon gives each person his complete attention for several minutes, having a sincere conversation, while personalizing his signatures. He accepted questions during this time, but limited to one or two per person. When I told him I had a list of questions from the TOR.COM Leigh Butler re-read crowd, he said he’d gladly work with me after the main signing line.
I would estimate 120-130 folks got between 1 and 5 books signed each. Several brought Warbreaker (myself included), Mistborn or Alcatraz books, and he signed anything of his that was brought, while limiting personalizations.
After the main signing line, he began signing store stock books, as well as doing additional personalizations for the Storm Leaders, who did a terrific job and enjoyed the time as much as any of us. Once he began this, he looked back at me and said, “Two more questions now, go ahead”. Then periodically as he was working he’d take more.
During this activity, he was handed the store phone several times. It seems he found a moment in all of this to send a tweet, and folks following him on Twitter started calling in because he told them he’d be at the store about another 45 minutes. The first call came from Australia. He spoke like a long-time friend to each of the folks on the phone, and prepared personalizations for them to be delivered.
Once everything else settled down, and a few Storm Leaders who hadn’t read The Gathering Storm yet had gone, he took a bunch more of my questions. When the shop workers started looking at the clock, he said, “Let’s let these folks close up, I’ll step outside with you for a few more minutes to ask the rest of your questions”. We shook hands and he got into the car to take him back to his hotel about 75 minutes after the signing was supposed to end.
If you are viewing this on github.io, you can see that this site is open source. Please do not try to improve this page. It is auto-generated by a python script. If you have suggestions for improvements, please start a discussion on the github repo or the Discord.