Happy Pub Date, Dear Miss Kopp!
Kopp Sisters Literary Society
Hello, dear members of the Kopp Sisters Literary Society:
I wrote this email to you before the horrible events of this last week, and I am writing this update a day before it will go out, having no idea what might be going on in this crazy country of ours when it lands in your inbox.
I decided to go ahead and send it as-is, although it seems self-indulgent given everything that's happening in the world. Read it if you're in the right place to read such a thing, and skip it if you're not. Thanks for your friendship and for being good people in the world. We need more of you right now.
Amy
Happy Pub Date, Kopps!
Hey, so today's the day! Dear Miss Kopp is officially unleashed upon the world. I am so grateful to all of you who have taken the time to read the book, share your thoughts, post your reviews, and spread the word. It has just been so exciting for me and my publisher to see your warm and kind comments.
Today is the first day that you could, if you wanted to, post a review to Amazon. Up to you.
Also, tonight is my Zoom book launch party! Many of you are already going. If you haven't registered and you'd like to be there, just go here to register. I've had over 220 RSVPs which is quite astonishing. And to those of you who were on my Skype call where we had audio problems--I'm sure that's all fixed now! Well, as sure as I can ever be when it comes to technology.
It's so incredibly weird to be at home in my pajamas on pub date. I mean, I am glad we are all staying home and staying safe, but to think it might be months before I walk into a bookstore and see my new book on a shelf? Truly bizarre.
Just to remind myself of how much has changed, I went back into TripIt, where I keep my travel itineraries, and looked at what I did in 2013, during the week that Drunken Botanist came out. This just looks insane to me now. It shows not just how much has changed because of COVID, but also how the media landscape has changed in these short seven years. Nobody has a book tour that looks like this anymore.
Here's an abbreviated version of just one week. Why would any of you want to look at a 7 year-old travel itinerary? I don't know, but I felt the need to share. All books come out on Tuesdays, so that's when this crazy tale starts.
And keep in mind that in between all this stuff is a frantic amount of additional email interviews, getting clothes washed and ironed and ready for the event, endless logistics for the next week and the one after, making sure I had enough time to eat and to drive to the next event, etc etc. Also, in those days nobody would let you do a radio interview on a cell phone, so I had to make sure I was going to be at a quiet landline every time one of these calls was scheduled--and sometimes they'd get scheduled when I was checked out of one hotel room and not yet checked into the next.
You can see that sometimes I would add in time for dinner or time to drive to the event, because my East Coast publicists had no idea where anything was on the West Coast and would book me to do phone interviews right when I'd have to be driving myself to the next event (This was before Uber!)
Tue Mar 19
8:00 AM BY PHONE: THE IDEA EXCHANGE, WBEV Radio, Madison & Central WI, LIVE
8:30 AM BY PHONE: CINCINNATI EDITION, WVXU Radio/WGUV Radio, NPR Affiliate, Cincinnati, OH
10:00 AM BY PHONE: interview with the Northwest Indiana Times
4:00 PM Media Party for SF Garden Show
Wed Mar 20
7:05 AM BY PHONE THE ROUND TABLE. WAMC, National Productions, NPR, Albany, NY
8:05 AM BY PHONE: HearSay with Cathy Lewis-WHRV-FM/WHRO, Richmond/Hampton Roads, VA, TAPED
9:30 AM BY PHONE: UP TO DATE, KCUR Public Radio, Kansas City, KS, NPR affiliate
11:45 AM BY PHONE: MORNING SHOW, WGVU Radio, Grand Rapids, MI, NPR affiliate
3:00 PM driving to event
5:30 PM If time, dinner with family
7:00 PM Copperfield's Books at h2hotel
Thurs Mar 21
6:10 AM flight OAK to PHX
9:00 AM Columbine Garden Club, Scottsdale, AZ
1:35 PM flight PHX to SJC
4-7 PM--Minimum 1 hour drive from airport to Capitola.
7:30 PM Capitola Book Cafe
10 PM lodging in San Jose
Friday Mar 22
9:00 AM Phone interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune
9:30 AM Phone interview with the Tampa Bay Times
10:00 AM Phone interview with NY Daily News
7:00 PM Rakestraw Books
10 PM lodging in San Jose
Sat Mar 23
10:00 AM San Francisco Garden Show
1:00 PM Sign stock at Books Inc
2:00 PM Sign stock at Omnivore Books
7:00 PM Mrs. Dalloway's
Sunday Mar 24
8:30 AM Phone interview with "Bob Tandem in the Garden"/KSFO Radio
9:00 AMP Phone interview on "Easy Organic Gardener Radi Show"
9:00am to 10:00am
12:20 PM Phone interview with "Food for Thought"/KLCC Radio (Eugene, OR)
1:17 PM BY PHONE: WALKING ON EGGS Palm Springs, CA, LIVE
2:00 PM driving to event
5:30 PM Book Passage
10:28 PM flight SFO to LAX
11:53 PM Arrive Los Angeles (LAX)
And then the next week began, just like the last one, only in LA. And then home for a few days, and then a week in the midwest, another week in the south, another week on the east coast, a swing through the Pacific Northwest...
I gotta say, looking at this made me a little wistful for the world I once lived in and the person I once was. I would just refuse to do a crazy tour like this today, especially for so many weeks in a row. But in 2013, I was up for it. Race around the country, sleep in a different hotel room every night, live on airport food, wash out a blouse in the hotel sink every night, nurse the inevitable cold...I mean, I hardly recognize that woman today. Now it's a big day if I manage to take out the trash and go pick up the mail on the same day.
OK, enough ruminating! Thank you again for your support, and for helping the Kopp Sisters to find their way into a world that they would not recognize, either!
Cheers,
Amy