Booksquare

One of our major causes is literacy. Actually, it’s our major cause. We tutor, and we support ProLiteracy financially (stick around…in December, we’ll give our annual spiel on the topic). We discovered ProLiteracy (actually, Laubach Literacy, which merged, etc) via the Romance Writers of America. Every year, during the National Conference, RWA holds a multi-author literacy signing* with all proceeds going to literacy. Not only is this an incredibly cool event, it’s an incredibly cool event.

So please allow us to brag for a moment (yeah, like you can stop the wild machine that we are).

This year, RWA’s signing raised in excess of $61,000. Not only is this a record, but the record was set despite an incredible thirteen inches of rain falling in the Dallas area (never fear, we were safe on the 26th floor of our hotel). We volunteered to work the signing (volunteering being euphemism for standing by and looking clueless) as we do every year, and suspected this was bigger than previous events. Working something like this is awe-inspiring — not only do the publishers donate books, but authors donate time. And fans — well, it did rain lions and their equivalent in the dog family that night. Everyone we encountered (and in our role as traffic cop for the cashiers, we encountered everyone who’s anyone) was celebrating. Pretty cool.

But we haven’t bragged yet (no really, it’s not always about us). So we’d like to commend our critique partner Angi Platt for her incredible organizational skills (would that half of them rubbed off on us, but we’re not ashamed to ride on the coattails of others). We’ve done enough of these events to know this one was exceptional. Books were where they were supposed to be. Authors, likewise. Lines to pay moved quickly. There is no way we could do this job, and we were proud to be part of such a major success.

^{* – Interestingly, Guinness Book of World Records lists the largest signing as 60 authors; the average RWA event has 450. We’re admittedly not good with math, but…}

• ProLiteracy Worldwide
• Largest Book Signing Event