Hi again! Here with my last Coastal Magic recap post and a reminder that Friday the 21st is the last day to enter the Pink/Blue giveaway for Coastal Magic swag.

On to the final two days of the Con….

Saturday at Coastal Magic was all about the big charity book signing in the afternoon. But before I get to that, I have to mention the Meet & Greet I attended in the morning. I was the “staffer” on duty to make sure the authors had everything the needed. Not really a hard task as the authors were all very prepared with witty conversation and swag to give to readers. The authors I was there to serve were Linnea Sinclair, Gini Koch, Kristen Painter and Amanda Carlson.

I had a chance to speak with each of them, but Amanda Carlson stands out in my memory as a new author I had not read or met before. I really didn’t know much about her Urban Fantasy series, which I thought was based on vampires but turned out to be about werewolves. I love shifters!

How did I miss her books?  Don’t know, but I added Full Blooded, the first book in the series, to my to-be- read list. We had a great time talking about her series and other werewolf books. She also told me she is working on a paranormal romance series. I’ll just say it sounds SUPER cool! Just like the lady herself.

On to the book signing, I would love to tell you about all the authors I chatted with, but that would all be about ‘your table is here’ and ‘can I bring you some water’ and “I’ll be happy to bring you more copies of xyz book.”  Well, I was there to help out and that I did during set-up and tear-down.

During the actual signing, I got the sometimes uncomfortable task of being the guardian of the exit door. Readers naturally bring  books they’ve already bought to be signed and some authors brought their own stock of books to sell and then there are the books ordered through a bookseller specifically for the signing. We had a great system to tell which books were which, but I  ended up as the person to stand at the exit and check the various marks to make sure books that had to be paid for made it over to the register for payment.  Everyone understands the need for this, not because readers aren’t trustworthy, but because we all make mistakes. It’s easy to accidentally mix a book that hasn’t yet been paid for into the bag you are caring your brought-from-home books.

Most readers were very understanding about this and I tried to make it as positive an experience as possible. I tried to make it more about chatting about their book selections than the checking I was doing. It isn’t hard to get excited about books! If you were there I’d love to hear from you about how I did.

Saturday night is a bit of a blur to me. I think shortly after eating dinner with my blog/con buddy Trinia I must have collapsed into my bed. Sunday was a half day and many people had to leave early to travel, so there wasn’t much of a chance to say goodbye to friends and authors. There was a feedback meeting, but our very smart organizer, Jen, had been handing out feedback forms throughout the event and that left few people with much to say. I did hear a request for a dance floor next year. Jen seemed willing so look for that next year.

I was on the road home around 1 PM and home in time for dinner.  One of the best things about Coastal Magic was the positive feeling I took home with me. Too often vacations can be stressful. Not Coastal. It was fun, relaxed, and all-around-awesome. Kudos to organizer-Jen of BooksMakeMeHappyReviews.com and her wonderful book club members. They put on one supercalifragilisticexpialidocious book con!

Hope to see you there next year!