Well, dear readers, it was a going once, going twice, sold kind of day yesterday, literally from seven in the morning until eight at night. Why? Because I had some items in an auction and so I was watching their progress throughout the auction, which was in three sessions, with my stuff being in session one and three. My lots didn’t come up for almost two hours in the first session, but I’m always fascinated by what sells for what and how the bidding goes. The first two sessions were floor auctions that took place in New York, and those also had live bidding on the Internet as well as phone and fax bids. For the auction house I’d have to say it was wildly successful, over 1.8 million in sales. Their big item was the chair in which J.K. Rowling wrote the first two Harry Potter books. Going into the floor auction today it was at $150,000. There were two crazy bidders going head to head on it, both Internet, and when the dust settled it went for around $320,000 – but not JUST that amount because there’s a twenty-five percent bidder’s premium on top of that. So, it really went for over $400,000. I had some fun action on a few of my items (I’d already received an advance on my stuff last year), so I happily covered the advance and made a few sheckles on top of it. A couple of items shocked me by how well they did, while some other items didn’t do nearly as well as they should. Anyway, it was kind of fun to watch the action and root my stuff on.
The street people did something to the street and these morons actually blocked off the street for nine hours – correct, I could not leave my house and drive to get something to eat while the session I had nothing in happened. The helper had come at eight to get all the Eubie invoices, since that’s finally arriving on Friday, plus there was a bunch of stuff that had come in whilst she was off getting married. At nine I got an e-mail from the publisher telling me the books actually had shipped the day before and were scheduled for delivery. Why someone couldn’t give me that information the day before is anyone’s guess, but that was good news. They arrived around ten-thirty and, of course, I could not drive there to get them. So, I walked over to Jerry’s Deli and had a Cobb salad and a bagel, and the helper went to get the books and was going to meet me there so I could check them and make sure they were correctly done. Unfortunately, her car had some problems, so her husband picked her up and we all met back here after I finished lunch. Happily, the books were perfect, and we got them all shipped, so hopefully some of you will have them by Friday, read it immediately, and post your reviews.
I sent out an eBlast reminder about the signing, then settled in for the long final session. That was the scariest for me because it wasn’t a floor auction, it was Internet and phone only, and they start all the items in session three at one-dollar, which, to me, is utter insanity. So, a couple of my items went dirt cheap and I was rather irritated by that, but they were offset by some other things that did pretty well. Out of all the items I had, only four didn’t sell and people have two weeks to buy them for the opening bid. I’m not sure if that will happen, but we shall see.
Then I went to Gelson’s and got some silly snacks – too many – some drumettes, a tiny little coconut dessert thing from the bakery, and a few other little odds and ends. It was all kind of gross, but I ate it all up. Tomorrow I’m back to being very calorie conscious again. It was way too late to watch anything, so I did some clean up work on the LA script and did a new PDF and sent that to our stage manager, who will now print the cast copies. I got another Lanny orchestration to listen to – very lovely, and I also got another chart for the last of my songs, so I proofed that, and then we did all those corrections.
Today I’m going to just do stuff for the May Kritzerland show – I’ve got to finalize casting and song choices right now. At some point I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up packages, and then I really must relax and watch something fun.
Tomorrow is more of that, Saturday is the book signing (hoping for an decent turnout), then some of us will go eat, and then I’m doing a very informal read-through of the LA show at the house. Then I’m seeing some show choirs in Burbank. Sunday will be a day of rest, and then Monday we begin rehearsals for the LA show. For those who do Facebook, if you haven’t “liked” our page, why haven’t you, and if you haven’t, go do so immediately. I’ve been posting a classic LA photo every single day. If you search L.A. Now and Then you’ll find the page very easily.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, cast, choose songs, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Have you ever participated in an auction, and if so, did you enjoy it, win, lose – tell us your auction experiences. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland – going once, going twice – sold!