On Book Launching - Debbie Bennett

I officially launched my third paperback book last Friday. The lovely Dolores, new landlady of our local pub offered to host the launch for me and supported by my equally lovely neighbour and friend Gill, I decided to take up the offer.

I ordered stock – all three paperbacks weeks ago. I even parcelled up a few sets of all three books in gold Christmas paper, all ready to be bought and given as presents. I experimented on Vistaprint with keyrings and ordered twenty as a gimmick (not cheap, and I’ve since found better and cheaper ways of doing keyrings).

I always have postcards (Vistaprint again) and I did some flyers and a few A4 and A3 posters. I'm lucky in having a print shop at work that will do personal printing and copying at trade prices, subject to work commitments. I even dyed my hair to try to hide the fact that I will be fifty next month ...

So Friday evening arrives and I stuff everything into a box. On goes the face and the short skirt and I drive down into the village. In the pub, I arrange the tables with the help of husband and teenage daughter, who lays out my books very prettily in piles. I buy an entire bottle of white wine from behind the bar and a large glass.

Friends arrive. Friends from a facebook writers' group who I've known for a year or more but only met for the first time last week at a lunch in Chester, and yet they came to support me (even travelled some distance to share my bottle of wine too). Friends from the village and my lane; friends from my local writers' group. Canapes arrive too - all beautifully laid out.

I'm supposed to do a reading. That's what you do at a book launch, isn't it? But it's really hard to find a passage of the right length, that doesn't contain spoilers, doesn't contain too many unfamiliar names and makes sense in isolation. In my case I also had to make sure it didn't contain too many swear-words - I went through it the day before and edited out words, sentences and even paragraphs to get it to a length that would hold interest and be readable. 

Two glasses of wine - any more and I'd be incapable of reading any words with more than two syllables. So I climb up onto the windowsill, get them to announce it over the microphone and read four or five pages after a brief introduction. They'd offered me the microphone but even two glasses of wine isn't going to make me brave enough to read swear words that loudly, even if it is just dialogue! One of the guys from the drama group had even offered to read it for me, but I felt that it really did have to be me.

And it wasn't quite as scary as I'd expected. I don't like being the focus of attention like that, but I managed and apparently didn't trip up or (worse still) bore anybody! And I sold some books, gave away keyrings and postcards and maybe those that didn't buy will look me up later.

It was fun. Not sure I could have done it sober or without the support of all the wonderful people who came along. Writing is a lonely business most of the time, but a writer is nothing without readers and sometimes you have to come out of your shell and engage with people in the real world. It's hard but very satisfying.

www.debbiebennett.co.uk

19 days to go until Christmas and the Authors Electric Book Bonanaza!