📚Kyla’s musings: New book events + recap of book tour!
Hands down, my favorite part of being an author❤️
Hi friends!
I always feel very nervous before a book event. Will people show up? What if I walk into a mostly empty bookstore and the few people there give me pitying looks? What if I give horrible responses? What if I bore people? And afterwards, as an introvert, I need a lot of time to recharge my social battery.
But funnily enough, book events are my favorite part of being an author. And that’s because I truly love meeting my readers! Whether there’s 5 or 50 of them. Seeing them and getting to talk to them is the best feeling—an adrenaline rush like no other that I wish I could bottle up.
New library events this weekend!
On Friday (tomorrow) and Saturday, I’ll be hosting my first two library events for VALLEY VERIFIED!! I lovelovelove libraries and couldn’t be more thrilled to share about my writing and publishing journey with fellow library-goers.😊
Both are free!
The first is virtual and the second is in-person
To get the Zoom link for the virtual event, register for free here:
For the in-person event, Hayward Public Library is partnering with a local indie bookstore to sell copies of Valley Verified at the library itself! So come get your copy signed and personalized 🤗
Can’t wait to see everyone there—online and/or in-person! And here’s a great time to bring up what Booklist/the American Library Association said about Valley Verified:
My mini book tour!
The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. I went on a mini-book tour with 4 events in 1 week—including 3 events in 3.5 days.
1) Kickoff at Linden Tree Books
My nerves were at an all-time high because this is my first event for Valley Verified, and I haven’t done a book event in a while. It was also pouring that day, so I arrived at the bookstore dripping wet. All in all, not the most auspicious start. 😉
But the moment I met the bookstore owner, Flo (also my conversation partner), all my nerves faded. She and her whole team are just incredibly warm and welcoming. And Linden Tree has really cozy, homey vibes that made me feel so at ease.
Thank you so much to everyone who braved the rain for my kickoff event💕 I loved seeing familiar faces who have been there since The Fraud Squad days, as well as meeting new readers! And it hits different discussing my book about women at a Silicon Valley startup with Flo, who is a long-time tech executive in Silicon Valley. 😉 Working in tech and owns a bookstore?! I want to be Flo when I grow up.
2) First time at Ripped Bodice
You know a bookstore is cool when you walk into their restroom and see a placard for Men’s Fiction on the toilet… :) Honestly, I was just SO excited to be at Ripped Bodice because I’ve been seeing photos of it online for years and heard such awesome things from my author friends. And my conversation partner, Elissa Sussman (she wrote one of my favorite comfort reads Funny You Should Ask), is the most charismatic speaker—I’d kill to have her confidence and ease in front of a crowd.
I got to meet so many long-time book friends in-person for the first time! Like Trinity Nguyen (I’m SO excited for her upcoming YA novel, A Banh Mi for Two), Joey Comes, Gretchen Schreiber (her novel Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal just came out!), and Sam (whom I’ve always called bioteachernerd in my head because that’s her Instagram handle and we would DM each other😂).
One reader, Kaitlin, heard about my event on social media and drove NINETY minutes to this event. And then two days later, she came to my other LA event at Annabelle’s Book Club!
Also in the audience was a familiar face that I’ve not laid eyes on since before Covid… a true blast from the past in the form of an old college friend. We haven’t talked in years, but he happened to see on social media that I would be in LA, so he came over straight from work (he’s actually a startup founder! Very fitting given Valley Verified’s startup premise 😉) .
3) Return to Annabelle’s Book Club
In January 2023, I was the first author to host an event at Annabelle’s Book Club for my debut novel The Fraud Squad. And I’m so happy that Annabelle reached out to invite me back for Valley Verified! This place is not just one of my favorite bookstores, but also one of my all-time happy places. :’)
Annabelle went WAY above and beyond for this event. I walked in to find cake pops bearing my book cover + trays of Valley Verified and other tech-themed cookies (the Airpods one is so cute!). Annabelle even invited this amazing fashion illustrator (whose resume includes Hermes and Bvlgari) to do live drawings of everyone! Check out the one she did of Valley Verified’s main character, Zoe, and one she did of me—my beat up Converse sneakers have never looked cooler.
Since I always describe Valley Verified as Legally Blonde set in Silicon Valley, it was a dream come true to chat about my book with none other than the screenwriter of Legally Blonde!!! Karen McCullah has such an iconic career and I’m still buzzing that I got to meet her… AND DISCUSS MY BOOK WHATTTT.
4) Conclusion at Book Passage
Valley Verified is a love letter to my adopted home of the San Francisco Bay Area, where I’ve been living since I moved here in 2017 for college. So it felt right to end of my book tour at one of San Francisco’s most iconic bookstores (where I also hosted an event for The Fraud Squad one year ago!).
I get asked pretty often: Is it hard to be a writer in STEM-dominated Silicon Valley? And truthfully, no, because I’ve been so lucky to meet my best writing and non-writing friends here. My heart was so full when I saw them at my final book event in my home city. There was no better way to cap off my entire book tour than to be surrounded by the people I love.
For the longest time, I didn’t have any family in the same country as me. That finally changed when my younger brother also came over for college (he lives 90mins away from me). And I am touched that he came to both my book events in the region—even pulling out of a trip with friends and making a 4-hour round trip. (This also makes me feel extra bad that I forgot to include him in my book acknowledgements… BUT I have promised to dedicate my next book to him!)
And for the first time, my conversation partner is a friend whom I already know—and not through the book world! Lillian is a fellow gal in tech and also a Gen Z career influencer, so I knew she’d resonate with my novel about a young woman breaking into Silicon Valley’s start up landscape.😊 I was shocked to learn it was her first time public speaking because she seemed so cool and collected, but also very honored that she’s doing it for me. :’)
The BIGGEST thank you to everyone who came out to my events! And please keep talking about Valley Verified with your friends and family—word-of-mouth is truly the best way to keep a book alive after the events have ended.❤️
Oh, and I hope to see you at my library events.🥰
All my best,
Kyla