May is industry promotion time! These are my first opportunities to line up speaking gigs around the country, entice earlier reviewers, attract book stores, and more. And it all begins tomorrow, with one wild event, to be followed in two weeks by something massive.

Tomorrow is my pitch for the JBC Network, self-described as a “platform targeting representatives from over 120 Jewish book programs across the United States and Canada and Jewish Book Council’s larger readership, reaching 15,000 subscribers and over half a million online readers.” That’s a lot of people!

Here’s how it works. Tomorrow I have TWO MINUTES and not a second more to pitch my book, to an audience of 110 representatives. I will be one of around 250 authors, all doing the same thing: selling our hearts out in a multi-day marathon of back-to-back-to-back-to-back elevator pitches. I’m told I will NOT be allowed to go over.

I’m encouraged to have something to read but that’s just not me. So I’ve been practicing every day and night for the past week – it’s just two minutes so I have no reason not to memorize it. And I know, from the other side, I never want to hear a speaker read to me when they can speak out directly. Memorizing it, though, is the easy part – if I get nervous and freeze up I can’t just keep going, as the clock will be ticking – I’ll need to somehow edit improvisationally to keep it all under the deadline. In other words, I have little space to screw it up! So please wish me luck.

Afterwards, it’s a dating service – the sites list the authors they want, JBC shares them with me, I select the ones I want, and then the JBC manages all the travel logistics. I am super excited to make the pitch tomorrow and learn which communities will be the first to bring me out to share a glass of Seltzertopia.

Then, on May 31st, I can relax… and get busy! The Book Expo is “North America’s largest gathering of book trade professionals attracting an audience from around the globe.” If you know New York you know the Javits Center, our large convention center (where I go regularly for Comic Con). And this is the first time I’ll be working it – at a table arranged by my publisher, Behrman House, doing a book signing.

I’ve never done a book signing before and have no idea how to prepare or what to expect. But I’m not worried about it just yet – right now I just need to get a good nights sleep, make it to the JBC tomorrow in time, and, for two minutes, not panic.