Okay, I know I’m rather delayed in posting about this… but at least I did get around to it!
This year I headed off to Chicago, IL again to attended my 2nd year at the Printers Row Lit Fest. Last year I had a blast, met a lot of wonderful people and sold a bunch of books. This year didn’t disappoint either!
Let’s start at the beginning.
I flew into O’Hare Thursday evening (June 7th). Last year was great, but I didn’t get to see any of Chicago and was determined to fix that this year! My sweetie Sean Hayden was kind enough to pick me up (for those who didn’t know, we met for the first time at PR last year!)
Chicago!
We found our hotel, which I found using Expedia and got for an awesome 32$ a night. It was the Extended Stay American Chicago in Hillside. Considering the price, I was beyond relieved to find out it was not only easy to get to, but in excellent condition. Though not at all fancy (and no maid service though you could exchange sheets and towels at the front desk) it was VERY clean, the room was huge with a full kitchenette and everything worked. I would certainly stay there again.
On Friday we toured Chicago a bit, and visited the most awesome Navy Pier. It was a hot day, but we had a load of fun watching the boats, touring the shops and eating funnel cakes! We had dinner at the famous Bubba Gumps. Which was pretty neat, though I found my memories of the details in the movie Forrest Gump weren’t so great.
Saturday was the big first day of Printers Row! Which meant getting up at like 5am to have everything ready and loaded. Luckily traffic was awesome and we got to the site early and were able to drive in to unload. Everyone else started arriving and it was a flurry of hellos and set up. The weather was hot but otherwise fantastic. The crowd didn’t seem to be as big as last year, but they were buying! A lot of people stopped to chat, browse (and buy) books and get autographs. Luckily we had a cooler full of ice to keep us from melting in the heat. By 6pm we were closing up (and btw, yes that is a verrrrry long day) and packing our stuff into the center of the tent. We all had dinner across the street where we ate and chatted for a few hours and then I think we all went back to hotels for some sleep.
Sunday we were there early again, set everything up again, and kept on selling! Flashy Fiction and Other Insane Tales did absolutely fantastic! (Of course it does have a really cool cover 
) It was another hot one and ice and slushies from the 7-11 helped us to survive again.
I gave away a lot of bookmarks, postcards, business cards, and candy. People who bought a book also got a really cool magnet!
By the end of the day we were all pretty much worn out. It went until 6pm again, and then we had to pack everything up, load into vehicles and say goodbyes.
Overall the trip went wonderful and I had a lot of fun again. It was so great to see my Echelon author peeps again. Lots of hugs to Claudia and her husband who were next to me! I can’t wait for next years Printers Row! With over 150k people attending it is certainly an event you want to go to!
More pics:
Karen Syed
Sean Hayden
Echelon tent
I’ve been super, crazy, insanely, sleeplessly, stressfully busy. Thanks to lots of chocolate etc and the occasional ‘crash day’ I’m still going strong… and still busy.
