“I did various things for each author,” Hochhalter says. “For some I helped plan and then run events for book releases, everything from smaller more intimate in-store events to larger ones such as the Eclipse Prom [for Stephenie Meyer].”
“Faith, personally for me,” Lewis says, “has put together launch parties that have put together a name with a face. She has been behind our books, she has told her friends and they tell their friends. She’s booked me across the states. She’s opened up her stuff to me, and it’s just been incredible, everything that she has done.”
Although Hochhalter has developed a close, personal relationship to many of these authors, it took awhile for those relationships to actually blossom.
“My ability to form relationships with authors started ultimately with Stephenie [Meyer],” Hochhalter says. “I had never before been more excited to meet an author. Authors are my rock stars and I would rather meet an author than most other celebrities. [Meyer] was amazingly sweet. We started emailing randomly and then when ‘Twilight’ came out, she offered to stop by anytime to sign books.”
“By her doing that, the store was one of the only places to get signed copies of her books. As a result of my friendship with her, I grew more confident in contacting other authors when I fell in love with their books,” Hochhalter says.
As her relationships grew, Hochhalter’s book buyer status grew among the authors’ social circle.
“Ultimately it comes down to this; I believe in books,” Hochhalter says. “I believe in these authors. This is why I do what I do. I have always believed that you can change someone’s life with a book. Regardless of a person’s age and whether or not they are an avid reader, everyone’s life can be changed by a book.”
Hochhalter was in the book industry for 10 years — six of those years were as a children’s book buyer for Changing Hands bookstore — before she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in January.
The Project Book Babe fundraiser was a way for many of the authors to pay Hochhalter back for all her years of service.
“When [Hochhalter] needed help, they were all right there,” says James Blasingame, an ASU English literature professor. “Stephenie Meyer e-mailed me and asked, can you put this on, and all this group of friends from her book club got together, we rented the facility and hired the police and scheduled it all.”
For the authors, bookbuyers and sellers like Hochhalter are not just small people that help them get their books into readers’ hands. They are the main reason why many of them become best-sellers.
“I do not believe there is such a thing as ‘smaller people’ in [the authors’] minds,” Hochhalter says. “I have never seen any of them treat their fans or supporters with anything other than the upmost respect. And they certainly have always treated me as an equal.”
As far as being a writer, Mull believes there is no such thing as smaller people.
“It’s a cumulative kind of effect, a combination of readers, booksellers and all those kinds of things,” Mull says. “If you don’t appreciate those people as a writer you’re out of your mind because that’s how you pay your bills. That’s the practical side of being a writer — somebody who is your advocate like teachers, booksellers and librarians.”
Many of the authors knew they were performing a good deed by participating in the Project Book Babe Fundraiser but felt they were doing nothing spectacular by doing so.
“For me, I’m nothing great for doing this. It’s something we should all do, and I’d like to think that maybe I was special, but that’s not true because when we sent out the e-mails and made the calls and everybody was like ‘Duh! We’re in!’ It was just a no brainer for everybody,” Lewis says.
“All of these authors have gigantic hearts,” Blasingame says. “In the ASU English education program, we’ve watched all of these authors. All along the way as they’ve come to visit classes, they have been good with kids, they’re kind and generous to teachers, and they’re just wonderful human beings.”
“It’s very basic, if you’re nice to people, they’ll be nice to you. You need to give as a person and not just as a writer,” Mull says.
With standards already high for the fundraiser, it was far more successful than Hochhalter or any of the authors could have anticipated.
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