The Anatomy of a Book Table -- Sarah Nicholson

By -

Last month I told you about choosing a cover for my memoir.

This month I want to tell you about my book launch, or more specifically how to set out a display table for an event.

In my past I have created displays for a charity shop window so I like to think I have a good grasp on how to make something look appealing especially when pulling together an eclectic mix of ephemera.

This skill certainly came in handy when I had to make a display with NO BOOKS!

I didn't even have enough Os to write OOPS!

Yes, I held a bookless book launch. Maybe not the first ever but this is how to pull it off with aplomb.

I must just say it was my own fault for not ordering the books on time but my memoir is about grief and loss following the unexpected death of my husband. It is about making the best of things when something goes wrong, searching for the lost glitter that sparkles.

“It’s quite ironic really.” Said my youngest son, with a wisdom beyond his years.

I started my display with some sparkle – a gold glittery tablecloth, well at least a piece of gold fabric from the local haberdashers. I’ll hem the edges I thought, but of course I didn’t. Too much of a faff and the selvedge edges had a nice tinselly look about them.

You can't go wrong with a bit of sparkle

I created some commemorative book marks, garnished with sparkly wool from the same haberdashery shop. Each one was hand threaded while I watched Grey’s Anatomy – that’s probably where the inspiration for today’s title came from.

I went to the book launch with NO BOOKS
and all I got was this bookmark!

I added some objects I had written about, the first photo of Andrew and I with our firstborn. Andrew is wearing a sweatshirt which I recycled after his death into a bag.

"You are murdering dad's sweatshirt!" cried youngest son

There is a record from Andrew’s extensive vinyl collection from when he used to be a DJ. Number 777 is Don’t Leave Me This Way by the Communards, a favourite song of mine to dance to while at university. I also found the invite we had made for Andrew’s fiftieth birthday party, although he never made it to 50 we used it as an excuse to celebrate his life and surviving a year without him.

I remember the party we had for his 45th birthday - a bring a 45 party

There is a stone with the word SOULMATE engraved on it which I bought him on a trip to Chicago with the boys. He didn’t want to travel, he found it too difficult. I missed him every day we were away.

An original drawing by my talented niece @oliviarose_design which is on the back cover. Andrew and I are on Redcar beach, maybe not the most romantic of seaside resorts, but we are looking out to sea in perfect step with each other.


And finally, an elephant, maybe one of Andrew’s favourite animals, I think he had a dream about one once and he rarely remembered his dreams so there is some significance as well as being the elephant in the room that I had NO BOOKS except my "not for sale" proof copy.


No one minded there being no books, it was a great talking point and I took pre-orders instead, most have now been delivered.

“I love your audacity,” commented one friend, “what’s next selling fridges to the Antarctic?”

Actually, I’m not sure what is next, I waiting for those nebulous ideas in my brain to align. But one thing is for sure, Having one book launch without books is forgivable, I’m not sure I will get away with it next time!

I forgot to mention the purple Quality Streets, Andrew's favourite which we gave away as everyone left the church after the funeral.

Comments

Cecilia Peartree said…
Having nothing physically there to sell must have made it a bit more restful, in a way. You could spend the time chatting instead. The table looks good anyway - I like the gold cloth.
6 February 2024 at 10:21
Katherine Roberts said…
Love the table display - so much more welcoming than an author sitting behind a pile of unsold books!

If you're feeling really mercenary next time, you could have a sign that says: "SOLD OUT!" and give everyone who stops to chat a bookmark with the link to buy online :-)
8 February 2024 at 16:52
Post a Comment

Popular posts

A Few Discreet Words About Caesar's Penis--Reb MacRath

By -
Image
Veni, vidi...Wiki! Not long ago I had the all-time greatest Great Idea: one, born of total ignorance, that nearly tanked a novel. As you may have guessed from my opening line, my subject is Julius Caesar. But you might not have guessed from the title that my Great Idea entailed his being reborn as a penis. Don't laugh, please, I beg you. I saw no way around this, even though showing JC as a 'dick' might lead some to think that I've written a spoof. In fact, it's a serious thriller. Without giving the plot away, I can say this: I needed JC's ghost, today, remembering his nights with Cleopatra on her fabled golden barge. There  was the heart of my book--a ghost trying for 2000 years to relive that lost boogie with Liz. And I'd begun to run with this when my memory corrected me: Mark Anthony, not JC, was on the barge with Cleo. And this was after JC's death. What the hell was I to do, lacking the good sense to check memory's 'facts
Read more

Margery Allingham and ... knitting? Casting on a summer’s mystery -- by Julia Jones

By -
Image
The Watchtower from the Saltings  (Photo Tom Barr)  How to connect a 1940s naval watchtower on the Tollesbury marshes, a brilliant Scottish knitwear designer and my all-time favourite novelist?   The investigation led me along the single-track lanes south-east from Tollesbury, heading towards the end of the old railway line to Tollesbury Pier. I began to get goosebumps as I remembered coming here before. Once on a long walk with my dog, when I was never quite sure where we were trespassing but was determined to explore anyway.  That was when I first saw the six-sided building, stark and guarded against the weather. Then I saw it again in my imagination: ‘It’s a t-tower,’ said David. Xanthe loved the way he said it with a shiver of excitement in his voice. ‘It’s in the m-middle of a f-field and it looks right down the r-river.’ ‘And when it was wartime the Navy built it so they could keep a lookout against invaders,’ added Kieran. ‘Then p-zow they’d press a button and the whole
Read more

As Time Goes By

By -
Image
 Dooley Wilson, Ingrid Bergman, "Play it, Sam." 1942 I turn 87 on the 16th of this month. That means I was five years old when Ilsa Lund asked Sam to play As Time Goes By . No wonder I've been a lifelong romantic (who writes about time travel a lot.) I vaguely remember first seeing Casablanca at a theatre with my mother. She elbowed me from a Hershey-bar stupor to see one of her Hollywood bit-actor friends, Frank Puglia, as a Moroccan vendor selling Ingrid Bergman a scarf. I posted about Puglia here in 2020. (See " The Phantom of Dream Streets .") It was 1943. I was a precocious kid who could read the funnies and the headlines of newspapers delivered to our front steps every day. I hid under a marble-topped coffee table during air raid drills, laughing at the game of sirens, closed drapes and wardens waving hooded flashlights.  My mother, wth my Nonna Rosa, c. 1960 My Rome-born Nonna Rosa, still kept milk in an "ice-a-box." She didn't own an elec
Read more

Dress to Impress your readers! by Elizabeth Kay

By -
Image
 Every so often you come across a book where what people are wearing is described in great detail. After a while it becomes annoying as you want to get on with the story, not the author’s attempt at visually fixing a character in your head with irrelevant detail. Their mannerisms, disabilities and speech patterns may be far more effective. So if you’re going to describe someone’s clothing, it must be important. My first example is from my children’s book The Divide , set in alternative world, where the different sorts of human-like mythical beings are distinguished by the colour of their clothing. "Tansy had never been to Tiratattle before, and Ramson was pretending to be more familiar with it than one school visit could possibly have made him. He refused point-blank to ask directions, and denied outright that they’d been past the chalice stall three times. The shops were full of candles and incense burners, their designs quite unlike anything Tansy had ever seen in Geddon. There
Read more

What's Your Angle--by Reb MacRath

By -
Image
You may be in either camp or be a hybrid, as I am. In the course, though, of writing a novel we may all come to the same block: we know where to go  and exactly what to do there...but we can't seem to figure out how to get there smoothly and efficiently. I found myself on a roll with my WIP when the ending of the seventh chapter threw me for a loop. Consider: Chapter 7 ends with two of the three main characters--let's call them A and B--engaged in risky business in a small Arizona town. They've arranged for C to follow them days later on a different pretext, apparently looking for work. But, unknown to them, something has happened in Tucson. Chapter 8. Change of POV. Cut to character C, left behind in Tucson. Because of what's happened, he chooses to leave a day early though he can't reach A and B by phone. The challenge: getting him on the road and to his destination, while filling readers in on the Tucson tragedy. Road trip? Flashbacks? I tried a dozen different t
Read more