MAD HONEY Tour & Signed Editions

Hi All,

Today I want to talk about how it takes an army to create a book. Although I get tons of thank yous from my readers, there are a whole bevy of unsung heroes who help take my manuscript and carry it gently from seed to fruition. Some of the players you likely know – a literary agent, an editor. But there are so many other people who deserve a shoutout – from the people who design the inside and outside of the book to the sales team that gets it into stores for you to find to the marketing and PR team that makes sure newspapers and television shows feature it and that you get a bookstore blast telling you that my latest is out.

Recently, I got to meet a whole bunch of folks that also are part of Team Jodi – a team at the Penguin Random House warehouse in Maryland. Jenny Boylan and I trekked there to sign 10,000+ books in a single day, so that we have signed copies for our events this fall, and so that people who preorder get both of our signatures as a special thank-you bonus. I blasted Hamilton and Moulin Rouge on speaker, and Jenny had on her headphones – because she’s a Grateful Dead gal, not a musical theater nerd like me.

Do you have any idea what it takes to sign more than ten thousand books in a single day?

The answer is stamina, the promise of margaritas when you are done…and about twenty employees. Some from the warehouse itself, who were moving pallets of books and unboxing and flapping to the right page and reboxing. Some from the sales team, who created an assembly line that shoved the book in front of me for a signature, yanked it to my right, and slipped it in front of Jenny to do the same. It was a chain of efficiency and there is no world in which Jenny and I could have done all of that without their help.

When we got to the last pallet of books, one of the employees went to the speaker system and pulled up a YouTube video of “The Final Countdown.” We powered our way through the last 650 books and cheered and signed a conference room wall as other authors have done. I know that for the warehouse workers, it was a treat to get to meet the people who write the books they house. For us, it was equally a treat – to get to say thank you to people who rarely get the thanks they deserve.

Speaking of Final Countdowns – we’re TWO MONTHS shy of the publication date for Mad Honey. To me, it’s reminiscent of Small Great Things – it’s going to get you thinking, and will inspire discussion about issues we need to address…and this novel will give you the tools, the language, and the empathy to have that conversation.

Jenny and I can’t wait to share it with you…and we hope to see you at one of the tour events listed below (or our virtual event, if you can’t make the ones in person)! The tickets for our US book tour all include signed copies of Mad Honey, and a limited amount of signed editions are now available for preorder at independent stores listed here, and also at Barnes & Noble and BAM.

XO,

Jodi

MAD HONEY Tour Dates

VIRTUAL - Monday, October 3, 8:00pm EST

Random House Studio Sessions – A Virtual Event