100th Store Signing!

UPDATED: Book Tour through 105 signings

I have spent 30-plus years covering major sports milestones, from Cal Ripken's 2,131st consecutive game to Mark McGwire's 62nd homer to Ken Griffey Jr.'s 500th blast and much more. Today, I  enjoyed being on the GETTING IT DONE end of a major milestone, as the 100th store signing of #DiamondsFromTheDugout happened at Barnes & Noble in Athens, Georgia. Thanks to Pat, Tyler and the team there for being so gracious and taking the money pic of Bingley and me.

Athens was the choice for this milestone, because my english bulldog has been there the whole way this past year of promoting a No. 1 bestselling baseball book. It has taken hard work, a lot of miles through snow and rain, marketing yourself no matter who your publisher is. That was the first advice I received from a good friend and author: You are your marketer. Be creative. I invented the #BarnesandNobleStormingTour, starting with a Saturday last winter in which Bingley and I hit nine BN stores in the state of Connecticut, and we took it from there. I don't know of any other author who has done that...it's ours, and it reached a big milestone today!

This of course is the home of the most famous english bulldog of them all, Uga, the University of Georgia iconic mascot. We went from the store signing to the campus and took pics at the Dawgs' stadium, with lots of Uga imagery everywhere you look. Now the Southern States Tour goes on, next to Tennessee and into the Smokies.

Check out the tour page here for more info, as I will be updating it soon. Thanks! - Mark