Book Launches
I'm sure many of you will have attended a book launch either on-line or in person and it's got me thinking about how important these are for writers. After all the hard work and the long journey from writing to publication, every writer surely wants to ensure that the book is a success and to present it to as many people as possible. A book launch seems to be a good way of doing that. Through a book launch, we as readers are made aware that there is a new book due out. Social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are invaluable for informing us of this as well as where and when the event is going to take place. . 

Here are some events which took place in April:

Patsy Collins's 'Over The Garden Fence' on-line launch party was held on 3rd April and the pictures on her blog showed plenty of glasses of bubbly and snacks that we could sample when we attended. We were invited into her garden and the many comments from blog followers joined into the spirit of the virtual event. Patsy also gave us a flavour of the kind of stories we would find in the collection and there was a lovely photo of her garden with Spring flowers in full bloom. 


There is often a theme for the party. I'm sure many of you were tempted to join Samantha Tonge's 'Game of Scones' on-line launch party on April 20th where cakes and scones seemed to be the order of the day. As well as pictures of the book's cover, the photographs of delicious jam topped scones proved too hard to resist together with various other delights including lovely Greek baklavas and even a bottle of my favourite tipple, Baileys.  There were competitions throughout the day, too. As Sam said on her Facebook page, the on-line parties are a special way to make readers aware of newly-published books. Digital authors don't have a physical book to sign as you do if you hold an actual book launch.

  On Thursday evening, I went to the launch of a new short story and poetry journal,'The Lonely Crowd', in Cardiff. I went with two friends, Kath and Gael, from my writing group and you will find an excellent post about the event on Kath Eastman's Blog. I enjoyed hearing the writers read their own work and when I return to the stories and poems in Issue One, it will be their voices that I will remember.


The only book launch I have been involved in so far was that of 'Fifty Flashes of Fiction', the anthology of WorcesterLitFest & Fringe's Flash Fiction competition, last November. I wrote about it in my December 2014 blog and if you click on the link for Linda's Jottings and scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see Linda Daunter's thoughts about the experience too. There is also a photo of her reading her winning entry. The closing date for this year's competition was last Friday and I'm pleased to report that I sent in my three entries by the deadline!

Have you ever held a party or event to launch a new novel or collection of short stories? How did you find it? Do you have any tips or advice for anyone who is thinking of hosting one soon? I would love it if you shared your ideas. :-)

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