You’ve got a book deal and a publication date. Congratulations! So, that’s all the hard work done now, right? You just have to sit back, relax and look forward to the party? Umm…not exactly. Find out exactly what’s in store with my guide to throwing a Book launch …
Await information regarding the date and details of the lavish Gatsby-esque shindig your publishers are OBVIOUSLY going to throw you, an occasion the like of which your friends and family have never seen, a party which will allow your innate and yet hitherto unacknowledged star quality to shine. Hope that it somehow involved descending a spiral staircase in diamonds. Practice pose.
Eye up gold sequined dress. Too much? No, certainly not. You are going to be a published author and this is your moment. You’re gonna Cinderella the hell out of this thing.
Receive email informing you that your publishers have no events budget and wishing you all the best with your launch.
Adjust expectations. Decide against gold sequined dress. Send back tiara.
Look at events venues around your city. Lean towards funky, non-bookshop venue for extra quirk kudos – A bar? An abattoir? A pedestrian crossing? Look into the logistics/cost of installing speaker, amp, mic and bookstall and immediately need to take a nap. Call your nearest book-chain and plead with them to take your event.
Create an invite and send out to only your closest family, friends and everyone on social media. Ask them politely to please RSVP.
Six people RSVP.
Panic that no-one is going to turn up and have nightmares that even your trusty six will cancel, leaving you reading to an empty room with just the sound of your dripping tears as backdrop.
RSVPs appear. Hear on the grapevine that most of the people you have invited are, in fact, planning to attend and what’s more, they’re bringing their friends. Immediately worry that your event will be too full, people will be turned away, they will hate you and everything will be awful.
Decide, after much wine, to just not give a fuck.
Plan outfit. It must be something which will not make you hot/cold/uncomfortable/subject to a nipple slip. Eliminate your entire wardrobe. Decide on a kaftan.
Practice reading planned section from your book. Realise you are a terrible writer. Also, that reading out loud is knackering. Immediately have new respect for actors. Wonder if you could delegate the reading to one of your more extroverted friends. Decide not, but definitely keep this as a Plan B in case you faint (something else you’ve been having nightmares about).
Get around to investigating booze order and face the riddle: how much wine is the right amount of wine for an unknown number of people? Also, soft drinks? Snacks? After party venue? Check overdraft. Start to develop a deep hatred for everyone you have invited to your book launch.
Wake up in the night hyperventilating. Realise planning a book launch is like planning a small wedding entirely alone and what kind of fuckwit would arrange a solo wedding the week their book comes out? Start to understand why writers are always neurotic and/or holding a glass of prosecco.
Since you’ve already nailed the neuroticism, go in search of prosecco.
In a slim window of sanity, realise that you can delegate to your lovely, non-mental friends. Arrange to have one friend on the wine table, one taking care of the after-party, and one tasked with ensuring Uncle Geoffrey doesn’t take a left instead of a right and end up spending the night in Erotic Fiction.
Ponder that this writing game is proving to be less glamorous than you had been led to believe (By who? Nobody knows).
Day of event arrives. You’ve had no sleep but that is TOTALLY FINE, you mutter to yourself as you trowel on the Touche Éclat and sink your seventh coffee.
Get to the venue two full hours early just in case (Of what? No one knows). Hang around outside the event room, smiling nervously at the events manager, and staring, somewhat glassy-eyed at the large pile of your actual book. Have another coffee. That you can’t allow yourself to drink alcohol until you get to the after party makes this the first time you have socialized without booze since 1988.
Realise your arriving guests want to congratulate you but you can’t actually speak because you are incredibly nervous and trying to get in the zone, the zone being a place where you are not filled with a very strong urge to run.
Decide to hide.
Discover that the number of people who don’t turn up are exactly equal to the number turning up unaccounted for, giving you the exact right size audience, all of whom look very happy and excited to be there and not the impatient, nibbles-demanding hell-beasts of your addled imagination.
Get given book-shaped cake by your friends. You would cry, but you’ve had too much coffee and your tear ducts have dried up.
It is time. You are introduced by the events manager and note the fire exit instructions just in case you decide to do a Forest Gump. Receive applause.
Appear, if not in Cinderella fashion, then certainly with a modicum of grace as you almost but not quite fall over the microphone lead.
Thank everyone for coming and read from your book.
Realise you have written a book and are now reading it aloud to people who love and support you. They think this is amazing. It is amazing.
Do Q&A with very funny friend. Chat away about all the things you love about writing. Everyone is lovely. Realise with some surprise that you are having the night of your life.
Sign books for friends and family who want their picture taken with you. (Glamour!) Sign sixty books with decreasingly comprehensible dedications.
Arrive at the after party and collect bucket of wine. Float on a high of adrenalin and happiness until the early hours. It is real. You did it. You are a published author!
Wake up with your eyelashes stuck together, a balloon tied to your wrist, and a foggy memory of dancing to Whigfield.
Realise you are a published author who just had their first book launch – your childhood dreams have been made real. Forget all the pain and swear you can’t wait to do it all again for the next book…
Check out the novel that sparked this mayhem – The Gods of Love and the follow up The Love Delusion. (You’ll be pleased to hear that second book launches are definitely less terrifying.)
Need some help making progress with your writing project? Really want to start/stick with/finish it and can’t work out what’s stopping you?
My writer’s guide, Seven Creative Gremlins will act as your cheerleader, therapist and coach all rolled into one. Find it on Amazon NOW in paperback or ebook.