Unless you have been living under a rock, you are no doubt aware of the storm and the subsequent damage to our eastern states after last night when hurricane/nor-easter/super-storm Sandy made landfall. We have been asked whether any of our Booktrope teams are affected by this, and the answer is, yes, they have. Unfortunately, the power outage means that we do not have updates on their status, but we were in contact with most of them late yesterday, and all reported being prepared for the eventuality of losing power for an extended period of time. As we hear from them, we will share their status and maybe some stories here. The list below includes folks from all aspects of our teams, authors, designers, editors, and marketing managers.

Affected Booktropers:

• Erik Atwell (Just heard from Erik on Facebook – so far so good!)
• Stephan Cox (Power is back in Manhattan today 11/2)
• Lori Culwell (We have heard from Lori in various ways, including her latest Funny Strange photo http://loriculwell.posterous.com/no-power)
• Meg Curtis (All is well via Facebook)
• Nikki Van De Car
• Jerry Gentry (No power, but otherwise OK, relayed via text message to another Booktroper)
• Jennifer Gracen (OK, but still has no power. Also, her mother who lives in Long Island is also fine, although the basement has 6 inches of water at present).
• Lori Higham (Accounted for, and back online)
• Alex Kimmell (Also checked in via Facebook, and although worried about a squirrel invasion, is otherwise well)
• Ginger Marcinkowski (Safe and sound!)
• Gale Martin (Just heard from Gale on Facebook, she is fine!)
• Diana McLellan (Just heard from Diana on Facebook, she is fine!)
• Phaye Poliakoff-Chen (Heard from on Facebook, all is well.)
• Quill Shiv (Back in action on Facebook)
• Meredith Schorr (Read all about it! On her blog :)
• Peter Steiner
• Christopher Turkel (just heard from Christopher via Twitter @zizban – he is fine!)
• Rachel Waxman (just now got her power back on – Yikes! 11/3)

One of our authors (the fabulous Cassius Shuman) hails from New Jersey, but is now a CA resident. His father took this amazing photo of his street. His comment “well, I can fish off the front porch now”. Way to keep the spirits up, right?

What can you do to help? There are many organizations who are accepting donations to assist the people in need. CNN has a good list of resources, and of course the Red Cross is always a great choice.

As to our people particularly, many of these folks had planned promotions and other activities to coincide with the upcoming Halloween holiday. We will be communicating through our usual channels such as the hashtag #Booktrope on Twitter, our Twitter feed @Booktrope and the Booktrope Facebook page to keep that effort going in their absence. Any assistance towards those efforts would be greatly appreciated by the teams. Remember book sales are literally income for them, something they will absolutely need in the event they have not avoided the brunt of the storm.

Stay safe east coast friends!