October has been a busy month for Rick Riordan. After greeting fans at two well-attended outdoor pre-publication events—one in New York City and one in Los Angeles—the author celebrated the release of The Son of Neptune, the second installment of his Heroes of Olympus series, with a seven-day tour to seven cities. Riordan was hosted by the winners of a contest that Disney-Hyperion held for U.S. and Canadian bookstores and libraries, which garnered hundreds of entries. During Riordan’s week on the road, The Son of Neptune, which launched with a three million-copy first printing, shot to the top of the major national bestseller lists.
At every locale, Riordan’s readers welcomed him in high style, often dressed as characters from Percy Jackson’s world and cheering his arrival with anything but library voices. Booksellers and librarians pulled out all the stops to create elaborate event settings, entertainment, and activities—themed around specific Greek gods—worthy of young demigods and demigoddesses. Riordan’s hosts here share highlights of his visit to their hometowns, along with photos of him interacting with his fans, some 15,000 of whom came out to greet him during the week.
Riordan’s first stop was Columbia, S.C., where he made his appearance at Books-A-Million in a horse-drawn wagon—the transportation mode of choice for Hades, the event’s highlighted god. Staffers and a decorator used a Hades theme to transform the store, even decorating the entrance to mimic the gates to the underworld. Inside, kids played games, posed for pictures with a cutout of a three-headed dog, and visited a Camp Half-Blood replica while awaiting Riordan’s arrival.
As that time drew near, the children—Jacquie Lee, Books-A-Million’s regional community relations manager, estimates that the total turnout was 3,000 people—filtered out of the store and lined up along the street, six-to-eight deep, for more than a mile. “As the author rode by, the children were screaming to him about how much they love Percy,” Lee (who was dressed as Medusa for the festivities) reports, “It was as though he were a rock star. And he was gracious enough to stop and talk to many of them along the way. I’ve been in this business close to 30 years, and have even hosted U.S. presidents, but this was perhaps the most intense event I’ve witnessed. To see the look on those children’s faces was amazing!”
Riordan next touched down in Pittsburgh, where a crowd of 600 filled the sold-out auditorium at the Carnegie Public Library. Coordinated by the Penguin Bookshop in Sewickley in partnership with the library and Pittsburgh Arts and Letters, the program began with what Maryanne Eichorn, Penguin’s general manager, calls “sort of a warm-up act” entailing a trivia show and a performance by a local musician who put passages from the author’s books to music. After Riordan gave a talk, a panel of four students in costumes, and then the general audience, asked him questions.
The children then poured into the library, where Riordan signed books and kids enjoyed snacks, photo ops with Athena-themed props, and activities. “It was an incredible, well-orchestrated event and the kids were thrilled,” says Eichorn. “One boy came wearing a tuxedo, and Rick asked him about his costume. And he answered, ‘I wore it to meet you. This is the best night of my life.’ We’ve never before had an event after which people came into the store and brought us gifts. They were so appreciative.”
Riordan then traveled north to Toronto, where more than 1,000 fans, including this costumed Athena, showed up at Indigo Books to meet the author. “The store was ready for a mythological good time,” reports events marketing coordinator Melissa Mateus Durbano, who says the turnout “was fantastic as usual for this hugely popular children’s author.” At the Ares-themed event, the staff dressed up as Greek figures and Camp Half-Blood demigods, and the store was decorated with Greek columns and a golden Greek god statue that kids could have their photo taken with.
While the store’s “resident DJ” played music, kids engaged in a variety of activities, including face painting and posing sessions in a photo booth. Heroes of Olympus key chains and posters were given away, as well as gift card prizes for best costumes. Spirits ran high, says Durbano, who notes, “Kids were cheering and jumping up and down with excitement in anticipation of meeting their writing hero.”
The following day, the more than 2,500 attendees at The Son of Neptune event at Barnes & Noble in Burlington, Mass., included these students from Parker Middle School in nearby Reading, who were treated to a pre-signing meet-and-greet and Q&A session. The school was the first to respond to the store’s invitation to host a pre-visit Rick Riordan Bookfair, a fundraiser for the school that took place on the novel’s October 4 laydown date. The students also created artwork and wrote essays to decorate the event space for Riordan’s visit.
Dee Mandolese, the store’s community relations manager, says that the first attendees—two groups from New Jersey and one from New York—began lining up outside the store early in the morning for the evening signing. As the line grew during the day, she and other staffers kept the fans entertained with trivia questions, candy, copies of word searches and mazes, and other giveaways. Once children and their parents were ushered inside, in groups, Mandolese was equally hands-on, showing parents the ideal spot from which to take photos as their children approached the signing table. “One mother couldn’t say enough about how thrilled her daughter was to meet Riordan,” Mandolese notes. She said she’d been waiting for this for a very long time.”
This chariot pulled by muscular Spartan warriors delivered Riordan to his next destination, Mission Viejo Library in Mission Viejo, Calif., where some 3,500 fans lined the streets to cheer his arrival—loudly. Alexander Uhl, owner of A Whale of a Tale Children’s Bookshoppe in Irvine, whose store partnered with the library to coordinate the event, had the privilege of sitting on the seat beside the author. “Riding with Rick Riordan to thunderous applause and the roar of the crowd was like scoring the winning touchdown at the Superbowl!” she says. “And looking at those young faces in the crowd and seeing their excitement was amazing. We made quite a dramatic entrance—it could have been right out of Spartacus.”
Riordan made a presentation from a stage in a park adjacent to the library, after which kids could choose from some 20 different craft projects, which were organized by library staffers. Given time limitations, 1,000 attendees received tickets to have their books autographed, though Riordan signed hundreds more before the event to be sold after the signing. “I think we created an absolutely awesome experience that will stay with these fans long after the last page of The Son of Neptune is read,” Uhl comments. “It does my heart good to know that the children who were there will relive that moment they had with Rick on their own, time and time again.”
Riordan had, quite appropriately, arrived by yacht before giving this speech to a crowd of 3,500 at a Poseidon-themed gathering at the Port of Olympia Plaza in Olympia, Wash. The event was organized by the Tumwater branch of the Timberland Regional Library in nearby Tumwater and Orca Books in Olympia. The plaza was turned into “Poseidon’s Fish Market,” and was filled with some 25 tents offering “fish face painting” and other seaside-themed crafts and activities, including photo ops with mermaid and shark face cut-outs and volleyball games featuring beach balls.
“We managed to shuffle thousands of people through the signing line,” says Joella Peterson, youth services librarian at the Tumwater branch, who notes that the event went off smoothly thanks to the efforts of about 30 library staff members and other volunteers, many from the Tumwater school district, which cosponsored the festivities. “We publicized this event on radio, TV, and in newspapers from Seattle to Portland, and there was lots of word-of-mouth about it from teachers and librarians,” she says of the hefty turnout. “One school sent a busload of kids and they were absolutely thrilled. It was the highlight of their week.”
Back home in Texas and hard at work on his next book, Riordan couldn’t be reached for comment. But in an October 14 blog post, Riordan notes that he signed well over 25,000 books during his seven-day tour. He shares words of thanks: “I’m so grateful to the sponsors of each event who made everything run so smoothly, and to the fans who waited so patiently and were so understanding with the limits of the signing line.”
And the author clearly enjoyed his face-to-face time with fans, noting, “There were so many great moments. One boy gave me a Roman coin to take with me for good luck. Another said, ‘I thank God that he put you here to write these books!’ Many fans shared stories they’d written or pictures they’d drawn. And the costumes were incredible! The Son of Neptune’s launch week was a huge success, by far the biggest of my career so far.”
