Signed, sealed, delivered… S&W, I’m yours!

A few days ago I signed  (with my super-fan­cy pen–thanks Joni Sensel!) the offi­cial con­tract for my first book, to be pub­lished by Schwartz & Wade at Ran­dom House, and dropped it in the mail­box. Woohoo! What a fan­tas­tic feeling.

Armed with the Authors Guild’s Mod­el Trade Book Con­tract & Guide, I sat down to pick my way through the legalese if only to know that I had done my due dili­gence. Thanks to my super-awe­some agent, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte, and the equal­ly awe­some Erin Mur­phy, there real­ly was­n’t any­thing left for me to nego­ti­ate, although Joan did read and reply to a rather long list of prob­a­bly most­ly stu­pid ques­tions from me. The rea­sons why I’m absolute­ly thrilled and relieved to have these won­der­ful peo­ple on my side just keep mounting.
There was only minor stick­ing point: what to call MYSELF! I know, that does­n’t sound very hard, does it? Well, it was for me. There are just too many of us Lau­rie Thomp­sons in the world. How could I stand out and be unique, with­out con­fus­ing the issue one way or the oth­er? Well, after run­ning in cir­cles for a few days, we (yes, I even made poor Joan weigh in on this one) went for adding my mid­dle name, Ann, to the mix. Lau­rie Ann Thomp­son. Excit­ing, huh? I know, it real­ly should­n’t have been that hard. Oy.