Before and After--On Boswell Hosting Lauren Conrad.

Hi Everyone (revised edition),

On Wednesday, June 12, we hosted Lauren Conrad for a ticketed signing at 7 pm.

Here are some things we asked folks to know:a. To make sure everyone can get their book signed, Ms. Conrad is not able to personalize.
b. Alas, no posed photos, but you can take a photo while in line. We call that a "line photo" round here. Revised edition--in the dark, it's hard to take a good photo. See below.

Live vicariously through our expereience. Tickets were available. They were $20, including tax, and include a copy of Infamous, her new Fame Game novel (it's season two!). Each book purchase also included a $10 coupon for Kohls, and we are donating $2 to Children's Hospital out of each ticket sold. Revised note--we are donating almost $800 to Children's Hospital.

We have taken down online ordering at the end of our business day yesterday as there seemed to be too many things that could go wrong processing online events the same day. It's walk ups only at this point. Note: This was a good idea.

The weather might not be so great. Note: It wasn't.We are going to try to get as much of the line in the store as we can. I have bought pretty new lime green masking tape.  I might take a picture of it later. Note: I didn't.

This event is sponsored by Kohls. Please visit the LC Lauren Conrad Collection. I am planning on having a lot of fun. Hope you are too.

Your Bookselling Friend,

Daniel

Addendum: What a great time we had! This teens from Children's Hospital who got to meet Conrad had an extra special time, but I would say there wasn't a person there who wasn't thrilled about the event. I spoke to a lot of folks in line, asking them if they knew what they were going to say. I felt vindicated in that most people are like me; they had no idea!

It reminded me of being on line for a rollercoaster. You're getting to the top of the hill, closer, closer, closer, and then you're there! At one point, I said it was like getting closer to a wedding to someone and she replied "It is! I'm getting married on Saturday."

So the big news is that our side of the shopping district lost power about 6:30 pm. That included Starbucks, The Downer Theater, Via, CVS, and whatever else was open. At one point, we had a backup plan to have the signing on the 2nd floor of Cafe Hollander. A huge thanks to the folks there who gave us the option. In the end, it was light enough that we moved the event to the windows, and just as it was getting dark, the lights went on again, at around 7:15 pm.

Yes, that was a lot of folks in the dark, but everyone was so wonderfully cooperative. We all knew that if we worked together, we'd still have a great event. Because of the reconfiguration and the blackout for the first part of the event, we had to cut out photos, and a huge thanks to everyone who understood that this was a small price to pay to make this event work. As I said more than once, the brain is the best camera of all. Most of you half believed me.

Thank you to all the folks at HarperCollins who helped put this together, thank you to Lauren Conrad's people, thank you to everyone at Kohls, thank you to the Boswell booksellers, but most of all, thank you to everyone who came. I don't know if you've heard this before, but we wouldn't have a bookstore without you.