One of My Many Hats

We all wear different hats throughout our days. Each day, I wear that of a maid, cook, chaufeur, marketing assistant, and sometimes, even president of a publishing company. This week, I got a chance to wear that hat for two days at the LDSBA or Latter-Day Saint Bookseller's Association Convention in South Jordan. This year was different from the others with less vendors setting up and less buyers coming to review the wares. Both the high and low point of our location on the floor this year was that we were next to Utah Truffles, which had non-stop free samples of their products. I did really well on the first day, but by 5:00 pm on the second day, I was shaking and looking for a booth that maybe had protein like cheese and eggs to balance out the sugar in my system. (Unfortunately, Hickory Farms wasn't there!)

Here is our booth this year with the new banner that Elizabeth designed.

Each day, Kink and Kevan Clawson and I would welcome the buyers with a bag that included the new book of the year, Hostess to the World about Irene Staples, and Becoming a Great Missionary. Each person who stopped by would get the missionary book and, thanks to John's insight who stopped by at the end of the first day, some chocolate from V Chocolates. (It was pretty hard to compete with our neighbor, although when people would slow down for the free samples, we could grab their attention.) Liz stopped by with her new postcard line with the photos from Tinian and we were able to show off her talents to Granite Distributing for some possible book covers. (Her work really is unbelievable--www.elizabethclawson.com.) So next year brings maybe a couple of new books and hopefully the coffee table book of the World War I envelopes. I'll have to put that fancy hat away for another year . . . .