Anyone going to CT signing?

BevVincent

Is anyone else going to the Connecticut signing? My niece and I will be there! ;D Wonder what time we should line up to get tickets?

BevVincent

I seem to recall they will start giving them out at 6:30 a.m.

jolycu

I checked the Just Books Too website and they will start giving out tickets at 6:00 am. After reading the posts at the DarkTower.net, I'm planning on camping out overnight! Is there anyone here that's familiar with that area? I need some help with names of cheap motels.

BevVincent

I would love to go, but this is just too far from Ottawa (Canada). I did go to the Betts Bookstore signing in 1998 and it was a lot of fun. Was much easier to make travel arrangements in that case because Stu was generous enough to gurantee tickets. Would be a bitch to travel all the way there...and not get a ticket.

BevVincent

Paul Halucha wrote: Would be a bitch to travel all the way there...and not get a ticket.  

CRinVA

Our guest has been !

Ford_Prefect

I just got that! thats great! I was wondering what on earth would possess him to make such a comment.

Damn censor

Ford_Prefect

cuz you know i wrote DARN!

BevVincent

I would love to go, but this is just too far from Ottawa (Canada).

Our guest was censored and he's also from OTTAWA!



Hi Paul! I'm from Ottawa also.



Lin (who just had the pleasure of visiting Bett's and meeting Stu in July)

Ford_Prefect

Maybe its an ottawa thing cuz im getting censored left and right. Boy, they raise us to swear up there! :-X

BevVincent

Some info from Books, Too about the signing:



We have confirmed that Michael Whelan will join Stephen King on September 20 to sign Dark Tower VII. He will be arriving at 10:30 AM on the 20th and staying until 2 PM. Book signing limits will be set that day, depending on the availability of stock. Prints will also be available.



For anyone who is curious (some forums seem curious), the bookstore is literally behind the train station. There is limited parking in town and no paid lots (or meters for that matter). There is a large lot behind the store but all if it is 2 hour parking.



We will be at the store through Sunday night and expect police to either be heavily patroling or crowd controlling through the night. Standing on-line in the wee hours of the morning is probably a given, at this point, but pitching a tent is not something that the police would be in favor of.



We will give tickets out at 6 AM so that people can roam about with the expectation that people return to the line by 11:40 AM!

Lou_Sytsma

Call me crazy, and as much as I admire the man's work, this sort of experience is beyond me.

Rache4173

I only waited a few hours for my book to be signed by SK when I saw him years ago. I'd do it again in a heartbeat - and I think I'd likely camp out if the odds were in my favor to meet him and get another signed book.



My question... are there any other authors who experience this same type of things with their fans and at their booksignings? I don't recall hearing about any, but I'm also not looking for that type of information about anyone else. :-/

CRinVA

I went to the Betts Bookstore signing in 1998 and the wait was no big deal - of course if you contacted Stu Tinker ahead of time he put you in line at a given number and then when you showed up that day (the signing was at 6pm) he gave you your ticket and you just had to be back in time to be with your group - they let groups of 20 at a time into the store.



Me and a few SKEMER friends were actually outside across the street sitting on a park bench when Stephen King strolled right past us (behind us) casually as he headed across the street and into the back door at Betts. This was when Betts was downtown in its previous location. The deal then was King would sign any two books, but you had to buy two books from Betts that day - you didn't have to purchase the ones you wanted signed, just needed to buy two. The girl in line in front of me was getting a pristine First Edition Carrie signed. I got The Stand (the unabridge one) signed and Legends which contained The Little Sisters of Eluria. Terry Goodkind, another Maine author (fantasy) that Betts stocks was also in the store and I got him to sign my Legends as he has a story in there as well.



By the way, while we were sitting on the park bench across the side street from Betts (you couldn't see the front of the store from where we were, but there were many many people already gathering there) someone said "there goes King now" and he stopped and did acknowledge us! Those standing out front never saw him enter the store!



Bottom line - no camping out, etc - it was easy for this signing. Unfortunately its the only signing I've been able to go to! :-[

JReitan47

I would be at the CT signing if I wasn't going to Las Vegas this weekend and then Phoenix in October.

jolycu

I'm really getting excited about this trip! My husband and I have already driven almost 13,000 miles this month, so along with a week of vacation, we are now officially off until the first of October. My best friend will also be going to the signing, and my niece is over the top about it. She's 14 and the biggest town she's ever been to is St. Louis. We are planning on going into NYC and taking a harbor cruise around the Statue of Liberty. It will be really interesting to watch her reaction to Grand Central Station. I've got cameras for each one of us, so we'll have lots of pictures when we get back.

BevVincent

Just Books, Too welcomes Stephen King Monday, Sept. 20, and invites the public to come get a copy of the newly released The Dark Tower VII and get it signed by the Prince of the Scary. As you might guess, it's not going to be your typical book signing, what with King being one of the most successful fiction writers of all time and all. The store opens at 6 a.m., and it's first come first serve, so expect to wait in line for a long time. Don't show up at noon and think you're going to sneak in front, tough guy. Only The Dark Tower will be signed, and it must be purchased at Just Books the same day (clever business ploy, eh?). Only 200 books will be signed, only one book per person, no pre-orders are allowed and no tickets will be sold. You must stand on your head while burping the alphabet backwords, write an essay on why you deserve an autograph and produce the skull of an ex-president just to get inside the door. Well, that's not true, but plan on making a morning out of this, OK?



Just Books, Too is located at 28 Arcadia Rd. in Greenwich. Stephen King will be there, signing away diligently, from noon to 2 p.m. Call 630-0707 or visit www.just books.org for more information.

BevVincent

So, Michael Whelan will also be at the signing and he will be there at 10:30am. Maybe this will be some consolation for the 201+ crowd; I hope so?



We're not trying to make it difficult by not selling tickets - just trying to be as egalitarian as possible.



You need to buy the book at the store because a) it's wicked expensive to arrange a signing and it would be kind of odd to have a big signing and sell no books ... and b) the on-sale date is on the 21st so the book shouldn't be able to be purchased elsewhere ...



ANYWAY ... I'd like to see the standing on your head burping thing and even the skull of a president so bring it on!

BevVincent

Fit for a King : Fans line up in the cold for chance to see horror writer (The Stamford Advocate)



Picture of King signing included with the article.

RJ_Sevin

"While the book is being promoted as the conclusion of the series, only the desire to release the book on schedule stopped him from continuing to tinker with it, King said. Someday, he said, he would like to condense the whole series into two volumes."



Um... what!?

Rache4173

Hmmm... two volumes at 2,000 or so pages apiece? ::) ;D

BevVincent

Here's another article about the signing.

DTUK

Bev_Vincent wrote: Here's another article about the signing.

A good article.



It is nice seeing people's wishes come true; sadly though others miss out; but I can understand the bookstore not wanting to keep everyone waiting out in the cold all night, and it was a nice gesture they did giving the tickets out early.



That would have been so cool, meeting Stephen King on his birthday

jolycu

We just got home from the CT signing and we had a blast! My niece and I flew into Chicago and met up with my friend Sharon (who flew from Tulsa) and then continued on to White Plains on Saturday. We arrived in the early afternoon and got checked into our motel, then drove by the bookstore and there were already people in line! The weather was a lot cooler than we had expected, so after getting something to eat, we went to the Wal-Mart in Norwalk and bought some hooded sweatshirt jackets to go along with the jackets we had brought from home. Then we headed back to the bookstore and got in line at around 9:00 pm Saturday. We were the 21st-23rd people in line. Even with the extra jackets, we still nearly froze Saturday night! I had on a sweater and two jackets and was wrapped in a blanket, but I finally made a trip to the 24-hr Walgreens store and bought a bunch of extra blankets. (We had to buy an extra duffle bag just to bring all the blankets home.) Sharon wrapped up in the blankets and curled up on the sidewalk and slept the whole night that way. (How she could do that and still move the next day is beyond me! If I tried that, especially laying on the hard ground and in the cold, it would have taken a crew of paramedics to get me going the next day!) My 14-year-old niece wimped out and slept in the car. I didn't sleep at all, just sat in my chair with so many clothes and blankets that I could hardly move, and talked to the other people around me when my teeth would quit chattering enough to let me speak. The next day, we all got sunburned!

jolycu

We met some really great people on the line. I heard there were some folks there from Mexico, but we didn't meet them. We did meet people from Kansas, Washington, California, Kentucky, New Jersey, West Virginia, and numerous other states. The other folks from Oklahoma came and looked Sharon up. They were surprised to find another Okie there. It seems a lot of the local people didn't know what was going on. They would stop and ask why we were all there. One guy got tired of the questions and started telling them Dr. Phil was going to be there! It was really funny watching the reactions.



I really enjoyed talking with other fans about the Dark Tower books and the other books as well. I think we made some friends there and plan to exchange emails and photos with several of them. And Bev, I told several about your site and your book. Hopefully, some of them will check in here to chat once in awhile! And of course, buy your book! ;D



The folks at Just Books, Too were fantastic. They (and the residents of Old Greenwich, for that matter) went out of their way to be helpful. I know they are catching some flak about giving the tickets out early, but it is totally undeserving IMHO. What really strikes me as funny is that most of the people raising the biggest stink are fairly local in location and would've had to make the least effort to be there. It just seems that anyone who has any kind of knowledge about the popularity of Stephen King would know better than to wait until 4:00 am the day of a limited signing to try to get a ticket.

jolycu

Now for the good part. I was afraid I would be too tongue-tied to speak for myself when my turn came, so Sharon was all set to back me up. But when I heard him talking to the people ahead of me, it was just like hearing an old friend! When it was my turn, I said that I wanted to thank him for sharing his stories, and for keeping me awake all those hours of listening to his books. I told him I was a truck driver, and they really helped me with my job. He gave me an "Aw, shucks" grin, and then shook my hand! Then I told him about how, when I'm listening to a story, my husband incorporates parts of it into his dreams. He'll wake up and tell me all about them. (Believe me, he has some wild ones!) He got a good chuckle out of that. He asked if we drove a lot of miles and I told him about 18,000 a month. He said, "Whew, that's a lot of miles!" and then I move on to have Michael Whelan sign (It was a pleasure to meet him, too) and Sharon is there and she tells him that we're old college chums and he asks were we went to school and we tell him. Then my niece, Kimmy, comes up and he's reading her t-shirt which is from a Brooks & Dunn song about how you can take a girl out of the honky tonk, but you can't take the honky tonk out of the girl. Sharon asks him if he thinks that's appropriate for a 14-year-old and he says, "Sure, why not?" Then he flabbergasts Kimmy by saying it reminded him of the song "Suds In The Bucket" (by Sara Evans) because Kimmy doesn't think anyone from the East listens to country music. By now, the line is backing up and we start outside, when he says (in Sharon's direction) "Keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down" and then looks over at me and says, "No, that was for you. Be careful driving all those miles." We went outside and took a few more pictures with all the folks we had met, then went to the car and I called my husband to tell him all about it. And, I'm embarrassed to say, I got all choked up and started crying. It really shocked my husband (and Sharon and Kimmy,) but not any more than it shocked me because I'm not usually an emotional sort like that. I had to let Sharon talk to him for a few minutes while I got myself under control. He kept telling her not to let me drive, to take me somewhere and get me a drink or something. The drink wasn't necessary and we ended up going to a very nice restaurant in Old Greenwich (MacKenzies Grill) and having a good lunch, then drove up the coast in search of lighthouses. The next day we took the train into NYC, but that's a tale for another day--The Three Country Mice Go to the BIG CITY!

Joyce