Book Launch Party Re-cap

As you probably know from previous posts, I threw my first book launch party for Secret Hunger over the weekend, and I’m happy to say I think it went very well!

I mentioned that I had two main fears going into the event. Either nobody showed up or too many people showed up and I planned poorly for the hor d’oeuvres. Thankfully, neither of those situations occurred. In fact, I planned for about thirty-five people to come by and that’s what happened – almost exactly!

Big thanks to Sean at Crave Bistro and Sara – the bartender extraordinaire. I thought it would be fun to hold the event in a venue other than a bookstore or library, and they really came through for me. The restaurant is beautiful, there was plenty of room to set up chairs, and it was large enough to encourage guests to get up and move around afterwards.

HUGE thanks to Lynne Favreau, my good friend and co-founder of the Wrinoshores writing group. She has not only helped me every step of the way for this party, but has been there since the first meeting of my very first NaNoWriMo.

I honestly don’t know what I would do without this fantastic woman. I had been to a recent book launch party the week before and loved the interview format that Edith Maxwell had done for her book, Farmed and Dangerous. So, one week before the party, I asked – well, kind of dumped the idea – into Lynne’s lap. She was gracious and agreed to step into the role of interviewer…and then came up with a set of really great questions!

There are a few things that I would do differently for next time. I read four excerpts and would probably cut it down to three, somewhat smaller ones. I got some valuable feedback that suggested I read a little slower next time (I was a bit nervous, especially for that first one.)

Also, I sent out a few press releases and submitted to local calendar events, but I don’t think it was enough. Next time, I’ll start my promoting earlier and try to create a bit more buzz. Even though the event wasn’t being held at a bookstore or library, I should have reached out to my local bookstores and seen if they could help spread the word for me.

At any rate, the most important thing is that I think people had a good time! Here’s some photos and a short video of a couple of questions from the interview. Lynne had just asked me if I would do anything differently while publishing my second book.