Maria Rosa Menocal: I had that thrill many years ago when I published my first academic book. But a trade press book is a very different --- and more thrilling! --- phenomenon, since you see whole piles of your books, and sometimes well displayed, on the front table of a store, perhaps. That evidence of there being a broad reading public who may actually see the book and then read it is heartening, of course.
Emma Sweeney: I went into a Barnes and Noble and saw it on the front table and the sales person there said she had read my book and loved it. She was about 20 years old. That was great.
Mona Golabek: Overwhelmed and blessed. Words fail me to describe the emotions I felt.
Lynn Schooler: By the time I saw The Blue Bear in a bookstore, I was already so awash in preparing for the book tour and working on my next project that it didn't really register much. For me, the real rush was opening the package when my editor sent me the first copy of the advance reader edition and I saw how beautiful and evocative the cover art was. After that, there was a feeling of "oh my gosh, what have I done?" because The Blue Bear is intensely emotional in places, and reveals a lot of very personal things that I had kept to myself for most of my life. I suddenly felt as if I was standing naked in front of several million people.
Tony Perrottet: There was a definite element of childlike glee --- I was in a Barnes and Noble on Union Square in NYC, and I thought "wow, I've got a book on sale in Manhattan" --- but of course that didn't stop me doing a little creative rearranging of the shelves. They had it in the "New Nonfiction Section," which was perfectly fine, but not on the Travel book table (which was actually more prominent), so I slipped a few books over. I wouldn't say I was overcome with elation --- in a way, I'd been involved with the book for so long that it's arrival on the shelves was mildly anticlimactic. There were no fireworks or parades I think I was more excited when I received the bound galleys, and it made the transition from my MS pages to the typeset version. Suddenly, it seemed a real book.
