Sandworms of Dune
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Wednesday, August 8, 2007

First Sandworms Signings

Yesterday I met up with Brian in our Seattle hotel and we went off to our first event, a talk and a signing for the employees of Microsoft. We were very pleased with the size of the audience, nearly 40 people in the seats of the small auditorium and another 67 who had logged on to watch the talk remotely. We gave a half-hour off-the-cuff talk, answered questions, then signed SANDWORMS -- of the 100 hardcover copies Microsoft had put on sale, 92 of them sold.

In the middle of the afternoon we stopped by Shawn Speakman at The Signed Page and autographed all of his preordered copies, plus some extras (see my earlier blog about getting signed copies). Then we headed over to the Barnes & Noble, where William Gibson was scheduled to talk and sign that night -- rather odd planning, we thought, since Gibson and Dune probably had a lot of crossover readers -- and signed their stock. The manager told us they had sold two cases of SANDWORMS already on the first day.

We had dinner with Brian's wife Jan, his daughter Kim, as well as Howie Hansen -- Frank Herbert's best friend -- and his wife Jo. Then it was off to University Books for our main signing. We have launched all but one of our Dune tours at this store, and tonight we had our largest crowd since the release of HOUSE ATREIDES.

We gave another talk, answered questions, and then Howie Hansen delivered a moving speech about his friendship with Frank Herbert and how proud he was to see the Dune legacy continued by Brian and myself. The audience was quite enthusiastic and we signed for nearly two hours. The store sold out of SANDWORMS entirely, and then they sold out of SLAN HUNTER.

Tonight, we'll be at Borders in Tacoma.

-- KJA