Book launch? Help!

I just started to dip my toe into the things you need to do to launch a self-published book onto an unsuspecting world and frightened the life out of myself.

You need a press release. OK, fair enough, but where can I find out what a good one of those looks like? What should go in it and who to send it to? I guess none of these problems is unsurmountable but it looks like I'm committed to a good deal more research here.

Then you need a book-launch party? A what? Does that mean party in the sense of drunk people in the kitchen debating how to set the world to rights; Mrs B girating seductively in the lounge, bouncing all her wobbly bits, whilst Mr B stands, dejected, in front of her, his hands held slightly higher than normal occasionally bending his knees not quite in time to the music. It takes you the next day and a half to tidy the house and the next fortnight to finish off all the opened bottles of cheap plonk. Are we talking one of those sorts of parties?

Why? I expect most of my friends will buy my book even if I don't invite them to a party and I don't know anyone in the publishing industry. That's the problem. Who on earth should I invite to a book launch party and why on earth should I suppose anyone who matters would have the slightest interested in turning up?

Interviews in the local media. Maybe. I occasionally phone in to the local radio station. I wonder if they'll remember me enough to be interested in my imminent book release. Probably not. They say you need to start planning six months in advance. It all seemed so possible when it was tomorrow's problem but six months before release is getting horribly close to the time I generally think of as "now". It seems almost pointless contacting anyone in the media six months in advance. By the time the book is actually released they will have forgotten all about me.

It's clear I have a lot to learn in the next nine months or so. I'm planning on a February launch so, if this were a human baby, the gestation period has just started. What a frightening thought. I have found a lot of very general information out there but the devil is in the detail. Help! And I mean that most sincerely, folks.

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My Book on Authonomy

I guess most blog writers are frustrated authors and I'm no exception. This is a shameless plug for my children's comedy novel "Fair-Eyes" which has just been posted on Harper Collins' "Authonomy" web site (http://www.authonomy.com).

I say children's novel but it's probably more appropriately described as "young adult" - say 12+ through to adult. It's kind of in the fantasy genre but not really. There are elves, it's true, but their society and foibles are just a thin disguise for a parody of our own society.

If this interests you at all, please take a mosey on down to Authonomy and take a look. If you like it then register with the site and put it on your bookshelf. The more people who do that, the higher my ranking.

To give you a flavour and whet your appetite, here's the "blurb"

"Saving a nation can be a tricky business at the best of times and being adopted by a pet dragon pup, who can cock its leg and melt a lamp post, really doesn’t help." [from "Once a Hippie" by Bartholomew Harvester, Books-Elf Publications].

Trapped by an underground rock fall, Eve and Paul stumble upon the bizarre world of the "Fair-eyes", a subterranean elf clan whose society and foibles are curiously reminiscent of our own.

The kidnap of a princess catapults the children into a desperate and dangerous rescue mission but is everything as it seems? Could the pathologically stupid Goblins really have hatched this plot on their own or are there darker forces at work? Was the princess the real target or is someone playing for even bigger stakes? Why do all your biros go missing and you keep finding unidentified keys at the back of the kitchen drawer?

Suspend your disbelief from a clean pair of suspenders and let’s go rescue a princess. She’s a celebrity for heaven’s sake. Get her out of there…

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