For a newly published author stock signings serve three purposes. The first, and most important is that if a book has an "Author Signature" sticker on it, it is more likely to sell. Secondly, it offers the author the chance to connect with the bookstore clerk. (I like to say...

I write this from Dublin, Ireland, where I'm on the second to last day of a three-week apartment trade with an Irish woman. People keep telling me it's like that movie, the one with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz from last year, the name of which no one can ever...