I wrote a blog while on my book tour for For One More Day's release in the fall of 2006. Here are some posts on the road...

July 28 2006

For One More Day   Hi Everyone! I am looking forward to sharing my experiences with you as I embark on a 20-city tour promoting my new novel FOR ONE MORE DAY. Mitch    Posted at 08:08 AM     September 01, 2006   A Note of Thanks   Hello to all. I didn’t plan on writing anything for this blog until closer to the release date of "for one more day" but people have been so responsive to the email we sent out a few weeks ago that I felt compelled to already say "thank you." I am glad to read that the book’s theme is resonating with so many people who also wonder what it would be like to have one more day with someone they’ve lost.   Our plans for the fall are pretty extensive. I will essentially be going on a nine week book tour all across the country. I love meeting readers and this time I plan on doing a good amount of talks where I can tell stories about the books and my experiences and not just sit and mechanically sign books. I hope you are able to come out and say hello if I am anywhere near you. Check this website for the tour schedule. The first day the book comes out September 26th - I will be doing Good Morning America on ABC around 8 a.m., so if you’re curious about the book, that’s the first glimpse. The following day, in my home town of Detroit, we are having a gala charity event with Tony Bennett, Hank Azaria and Joe Dumars at the Fox Theater downtown. All the profits will help the homeless in Detroit, and the tickets include an autographed book. If you are interested in attending, we’d love to see you. Mainly, I wanted to say how excited I am to see and hear early responses from readers. Launching a book is a nerve-racking thing, even more so if, like me, you don’t come out with new books every year. So your messages are much appreciated.   I’ll get the hang of this blog thing and be entering notes and thoughts all along the tour. So come on back anytime. Thanks for your good thoughts about "for one more day."   Talk to you soon, Mitch Albom

Posted at 10:39 AM      September 21, 2006   To my readers   To my readers –   We’re down to the final days before For One More Day is released. In some ways, I feel like I’ve been on tour for weeks already.   There’s been an enormous amount of activity with regard to this book – more than I recall on any other. We’re organizing a big charity event to launch it in Detroit on September 27th at the wonderful Fox Theater with Tony Bennett, Hank Azaria and Joe Dumars all coming by to help me. Planning it has been like planning Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s simultaneously. But it should be worthwhile, and can do some real good for the homeless in Detroit. Joe and Hank and Tony, in addition to talking about their own lives, plan to read small segments from the book, and that honors me more than I can say. It’s amazing to hear your own words read by someone else, even a sentence. It’s one of those rare thrills a writer gets. Maybe – I can only imagine this – it’s like a songwriter when he hears someone whistling a tune he wrote.   One of the sentences in this book – which is about a broken man who gets a magical “last day” with his departed mother back in their old home town – talks about what happens when you lose a parent. The man sees his mother’s ghost, he whispers the word “mom” and then thinks, “When death takes your mother, it steals that word forever.” Only a handful of people have read For One More Day at this point, yet already several have told me that particular sentence made them stop in their tracks. They were all people who had lost a parent.   This is one of those things, as I mentioned, that as a writer, when you hear someone repeat a sentence that you wrote, makes you feel that you have been blessed with a small shovel to dig into the word pile and find something that may be universal.   It is as good a feeling as it gets.   I hang onto that now - as the release day approaches and my nerves fray - and try to remember that that’s what you get into writing for in the first place. I look forward to meeting you out on the tour, which takes me, in the first week, first to Orlando, then Detroit, then the Northeast – Albany, N.Y., Portsmouth, NH, Hartford, CT., Framingham and Chicopee, MA.   And on the morning of the 26th, the release date, I’ll be doing Good Morning America, around 8.a.m. Thanks for your belief in my work. I hope to see you on the trail.   Any questions, send them through this website and I’ll try to answer them in this blog or on the Q&A part of the site.   Cheers, Mitch   Posted at 01:44 PM     October 02, 2006   ON THE ROAD   The first week of this whirlwind tour was pretty amazing. We kicked it off in New York with an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” then flew to Florida for an event that night and another event early the next day in a bookstore. I was stunned by how many people were there at 9 in the morning. I mean, I know they have nice weather and everything, but still…   Although the experiences were great in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, reading to an audience at the Music Hall, and a fundraiser in Hartford, Connecticut, helping literacy during a luncheon, the highlight had to be in my hometown, Detroit, last Wednesday night, when Tony Bennett, Hank Azaria and Joe Dumars all came in to help launch the book and raise money for the homeless. That was beyond memorable. Hank and Joe told insightful, funny stories, and Tony Bennett not only sang, he did his finale by putting down the microphone and bellowing a rendition of “Fly Me To The Moon” BY HIMSELF without any amplification. The guy is 80 years old, and his voice rang off the rafters of the Fox Theater! It was one of those goosebump moments. The event grossed over $100,000 to help the homeless in Detroit, and to all those who attended, I am truly grateful.   STARBUCKS: Tuesday begins the much-anticipated Starbucks experience, with an appearance in New York at the Starbucks at 29thand Park. The Starbucks chain will be carrying For One More Day  nationwide, encouraging people to read it and get together with others to discuss it. It’s sort of a book club on a huge national stage, and I love the idea that a big company is encouraging people to read. Starbucks is also donating one dollar from every book sold to the Jumpstart literacy organization. That makes it even better. I have the full schedule of the eight Starbucks I will be visiting and speaking at on this website, under the tour dates and schedules – so if you are near one, please come by and say hello. I’ve now seen some of the posters they have for the stores, as well as questions about For One More Day and its story and characters. It’s incredibly flattering and humbling to see this much effort for my book. I know another writer will enjoy this experience after me, and another after that. I hope they get the same kick out of it that I am.   FEEDBACK: If you’ve had a chance to read For One More Day, I’d love to hear from you on this website. And as a means of bringing together those who read it, if you feel comfortable, please share a brief story of someone you would like to spend one more day with if you had the chance. I think one person’s story will weave interestingly into another’s.   Posted at 09:21 AM