One hour, two sharpies and over 100 copies of Max Finder Mystery Collected Casebook Vol. 2 signed and my stint at Book Expo Canada was over. What fun and what a blur.

As always BEC was a book lover’s bonanza with publishers giving away titles and many big name authors happy to do the same. Mike Cho and I did our share of giving them away at the OwlKids booth where we had a steady stream and an impressive line up of Max Finder fans and the mysteriously curious happy to take a signed copy of the latest collection of Max and Alison’s adventures.

When the signing was done, I ventured over to the Orca booth where Colin Frizzell was busy signing copies of his latest YA novel, Just J. and his first YA novel Chill (both seriously cool books worth checking out.)

At the Orca booth, I was also very happy to see a totally cool poster for Wild Ride, the first book in my new graphic novel series, Graphic Guide Adventures, coming out in October 2007.

Apologies for the completely awful photo, but it was taken in a rush as BEC was closing down for the day. Bad photo or not, I still get a kick out of seeing the image of this poster.

I’ve written about the thrill an author gets when they’re boring old word processor format manuscript comes back as a colourful work of art. Seeing a large poster for your upcoming book gives that feeling and more.

There is the thrill of seeing your story take on a life of its own, but the added element is knowing that your publisher really cares about the project. Creating a poster may not seem like a lot, but publisher marketing dollars can be pretty minimal, especially when they must be spread across the whole range of new titles for that season.

From talking to the good folks at the Orca booth, the poster seemed to be doing its job in creating that pre-publishing “buzz” everyone talks about. Now, I’m fully aware that they could be just massaging my fragile writer’s ego, but I’ll take whatever positive feedback I can get, so thanks Orca for the poster and the buzz.

Speaking of positive feedback, buzz and all that, Max Finder Mystery Collected Casebook Vol. 1 is nominated for a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers, in the graphic novel category. Considering the two other nominees are from my friends at Stone Arch Books, I’d say I’m in good company. It all goes down tonight at the awards ceremony in Washington DC. Needless to say, I won’t be there, but my fingers are crossed and as I’m supposed to say at moments like these: “It’s a honour to just be nominated.”

K – that’s enough horn-tooting from me. Carry on as usual . . .