SquawkRadio

I’m hopeless.  The Squawkers invited me to blog here several months ago. Knowing I’d just be getting off my book tour a few days before the posting, I wrote the blogs before I left.  A waste of time, as it turns out, because I have something else on my mind now. (Note to Squawkers: If you need two emergency blogs, I have them ready and waiting to go!)

For the past two weeks, I’ve been traveling from Miami to Memphis on the NATURAL BORN CHARMER tour, visiting eight cities and meeting hundreds of readers as well as some amazing booksellers and librarians. The warm welcome I received everywhere was so heartwarming that it made me think about the way women extend themselves for other women.  (Let me note that men do this, too, but there’s frequently a fart joke attached.)

Several years ago I was autographing one of my books at Book Expo, the yearly trade show sponsored by the American Booksellers Association. Patricia Gaffney’s THE GOOD-BYE SUMMER had just been released.  I loved this book and had been telling people about it.  A woman approached me for an autograph and started telling me about her book club. I enthusiastically recommended Gaffney’s book as their next pick.  The woman moved on, and I felt a tap on my shoulder.  I turned around to see Jane Friedman, CEO of Harper Collins, beaming down at me.  I had no idea she was even there.  She’d overheard my conversation and let me know how touched she was that I was promoting another Harper author and not just myself.  Fortunately, I was too taken aback to say that I would have promoted Pat’s terrific book even if she wasn’t a Harper author.  Completely by accident, I’d made myself look darned good in front of the most powerful women in publishing.

Move forward a few years.  Right here at Squawk Radio, Teresa Medeiros wrote an incredibly generous blog about NATURAL BORN CHARMER that brought tears to my eyes. I knew there was no reward in this for her. She’d done it because she liked the book.  And guess what happened?  (I don’t think Teresa even knows about this.) Last week while I was on tour, the Harper publicity department took Teresa’s NATURAL BORN CHARMER blog and fired it out as a press release to dozens of media outlets.  Right at the top was a credit to “New York Times best-selling author Teresa Medeiros.” Yes, this press release primarily benefited me, but it also imprinted Teresa’s name on a hundred media outlets. Did Teresa have this in mind when she wrote the blog?  Of course not.  Instead, this was a perfect example of getting an unexpected reward for doing something nice.

Which brings me to this… Take a few moments for introspection.  When have you done something good with absolutely no thought of personal reward only to receive something good in return?