Notes from the Road: My First Summer Book Tour
I am home in Virginia now, a little sunburned, a little tired, and a lot grateful. My first summer as a published author is behind me, and I keep turning it over in my mind like a shell I picked up on the beach. I wanted to write it all down before the details slipped away, because this summer taught me far more than I expected.
When LOST launched this past St. Patrick's Day, I did not fully understand what came next. It turns out what comes next is the road. So I packed up my books, my banner, my little table display, and a box of bookmarks, and I took my great-grandfather's story down to the Emerald Coast.
## The signings
I signed at bookshops all along the Florida panhandle this summer, and each one has its own place in my heart now. There was Sundog Books, where I was made to feel like a real author for the first time. There was Salt and Story in Niceville, a warm little bookstore run by people who genuinely love local writers. There was Bodacious Bookstore and Cafe in Pensacola, where the bookmarks were a bigger hit than I ever imagined, and I got to talk myth and adventure with readers over coffee.
Here is the honest truth about signings that nobody tells you: some days a line forms, and some days one person wanders in. I had both kinds of days. And I learned that the quiet days are not failures. They are simply part of it.
## The day I sat beside a bestseller
The highlight of my whole summer was a co-signing at Cozy Cottage Bookshoppe with New York Times bestselling author Ginny Myers Sain. Ginny writes gorgeous, atmospheric stories where the magic lives just under the surface, and she could not have been more gracious about sharing her table with a debut author she had never met.
I will be honest with you. The foot traffic that day was slow. Barely a soul came through the door. And yet it was one of the most valuable days of my writing life, because I spent hours beside someone who has walked the road I am only just beginning, and she shared everything she knew.
She taught me things I am still thinking about. That even a bestseller with a big publisher can face an empty room, and it is nobody's fault. That showing up prepared and present matters more than any badge. That how a book is shelved, and who it is truly written for, can change everything. I walked out of a nearly empty bookstore feeling like I had been handed a treasure map.
## What I am taking home
If I learned one thing this summer, it is that this author life is built out of small, human moments. A reader who tells you your book found them at just the right time. A bookstore owner who champions local writers because she believes in them. A fellow author who shares her hard-won wisdom for no reason other than kindness.
I showed up to every table with my whole heart, my banner, and a stack of books I am proud of. Some days the room was full and some days it was not, but I would not trade a single one of them.
To everyone who came out, who bought a book, who hosted me, or who simply said hello, thank you. You made my first summer on the road one I will never forget.
The story is only just beginning. My treasure-hunting great-grandfather ventured into the Peruvian Amazon and never returned, and I built LOST from the legend he left behind. There is so much more of that world still to come.
If you have not yet met Cat and stepped into the Lost City, you can find LOST: The Lost City of Incan Gold wherever books are sold. And if you would like to travel with me as the series grows, I would love to have you in my newsletter, Letters from Oranmore, where I share the journey first.
The Fates do not punish. They prepare.
With gratitude, and a little sand still in my shoes,
Brigid