• The author decides it is a good idea to
have a few drinks before his launch and gets into a
fist-fight with the bookseller.
• She
refuses to attend her own book launch unless the publisher pays her to read.
• The
publisher detests book launches and hides amidst the book stacks in the back
of the store, alarming some of the guests.
• The first-time author believes if you
build it they will come, and against all advice
reserves the auditorium at the local library, which seats 250 people; 9 people
(including his editor and the bookseller) show up.
•The bookseller thinks the author is buying
the wine and vice versa so a youthful employee
rushes off to a local liquor store. Only thing worse than a too-long reading is
a too-long reading followed by “porch-climber” vino.
• No one is assigned to pick up this elder
statesman/author from his hotel to bring him
to his book launch. He cannot secure a cab because there is a freak snowstorm.
He walks the nine blocks to his launch in his dress shoes.
• The author launches her
book at a huge family reunion / town homecoming. News spreads like
wildfire.
• This launch is at a seniors’ home. Staff and residents are so delighted to host the event that apparently every
available soul has turned out. Two male residents even “play the spoons” for
additional entertainment. The author (who lives at the home) warmly greets and
chats with each and every attendee. The bookseller keeps running back to his
store to get more books and sells more than 300!
This long-time independent bookseller reads every book launched in his
store; his introductions offer superb background to the writer and the genre.
I have read his books, lived in their worlds,
marveled at the language—“never simply beautiful for
its own sake but exists in the service of the story he is telling” (says one
reviewer)—language so lovely that I must read passages over and over for the
sheer job they bring. He is finally here. I gather my books and sit in the dark
theatre as he reads passages I know so well. He signs my copies. I am in
heaven.
© 2012 Kingsley Publishing Services
