Super Thursday 600 - Jan Edwards
We didn't
call it Super Thursday back when I was first in bookselling in the late 1960s.
It was just taken as read that the first week of October was the starting gun
for the Yuletide sales drive.
Stockroom
shelves, which had been groaning with those hardback delights, would be emptied
out into the shop. Titles by best known authors went into the window display
(complete with tree and fake snow) and the card display rack doubled in size as
seasonal cards made their debut. Then as now the titles were taken from
expected best sellers; biographies, humorous books, novels by best known
authors, glossy coffee table books, children's annuals and so on and so
on.
This year,
according to the Guardian, Super Thursday has apparently moved to 3rd
September when a recorded 600 titles are expected to be released into the bookasphere.
The reason given, as with just about everything in 2020, is of course the
Covid19 pandemic.
The usual
venues closed in March for all of those wine and nibbles launches, and literary
events that provide a constant stream of soft launches moved online. Yes we
have online buying but the wherewithall to launch new titles with all of the
bells and whistles that publishers and authors alike tend to expect
publications has been denied them.
Because so
many titles were delayed there is a resultant log jam of books still scheduled
for 2020. Those 600 titles might have been rolled over into 2021 (I have
stories in two such anthologies where that has happened), but it would only be
delaying the inevitable book tsunami.
Now that we
have some kind of socially distanced ability to get out there an mingle perhaps
there will be a second super in a month’s time. Who knows.
Because of
the uncertainty of launch capability over the summer there was talk of delaying
the publication of my own novel Listed Dead (third in my Bunch Courtney
Investigations crime series), but it had already been moved on once and in the
end it seemed easier to stick with the August launch. I was never realistically
going to give Jodi Picault or Robert Galbraith cause to worry about any clash
of dates (good as that would be to imagine) so the issue was entirely moot.
Like any of
the 'Super Thursday 600' I have no idea whether not having the opportunity of
interacting with an audience at the launch and events can ever be quite the
same, though I have had some fun taking part in online events. I write because
that is what I do, despite all that the world throws in my way. With the Listed
Dead launch done and dusted I am head-down working on book four and loving
every moment of that process. 2021 is another year.
To everyone
putting a book out there this year I say good sailing, and may your next
endeavour be everything you could ever wish for.
***
A Small Thing for Yolanda is out in paper and
digital formats HERE
To find out more about Jan’s fiction go to: https://janedwardsblog.wordpress.com/bibliography/
Comments
What a super attitude you have! You're so right, 2021 is another year.
May LISTED DEAD succeed for you in ways you never dreamed.
eden