I’ve been blown away by the number of people who’ve contacted me to say they loved the book. Since then, most reviews have been resoundingly positive (Amazon average 4.8 starts Goodreads 4.5). Reviews: The first Amazon review came in a couple of days later, from a US reader I’d never met who gave the book five stars! This was a huge relief as I really had no idea how the book would be received. And despite battling a lurgy which threatened to render me speechless, my voice held out through the readings and Q&A – although after that I couldn’t speak for a week! By the end of the day we’d sold 80 books. This gave the launch an inclusive feel and made it not all about me. I invited some writers from the Maggies Creative Writing group to read too. I had a great team of supporters, with no shortage of volunteers to shift books, set up the room, bake cakes, meet and greet, serve refreshments, take photos, handle the money, shoot video and generally mingle.
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Despite it clashing with Mother’s Day, 100 people showed up – perhaps lured by the promise of free prosecco, cake and acoustic guitar sounds from JP my other half. Launch day: The event itself was fabulous. I spoke about how being diagnosed with breast cancer focused my mind on writing the book. Having been a journalist myself, I knew about the importance of hooking them in with a human interest angle. Media: The week before the launch saw me rocking up at radio stations to do pre-launch interviews. At one stage I worried there would be no books to launch with, but they arrived with a week to spare, and looked even better in bulk! More frantic editing and rewriting followed, taking the process right up to the wire. The paper quality was good and the cover had a lovely, waxy feel – so much so I couldn’t help running my fingers over it. The layout was nicely spaced out and easy to read.
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The cover looked just as stunning on the page as it had on the PDF proofs. The book itself: After frantic editing and rewriting until the last moment the proof copy arrived on World Book Day.
Small publishers vary a lot but I’ve been impressed with IQ for their professionalism and the quality of their product. I was consulted on everything from blurb to cover design and had a say in each stage of the process. My publisher, Inspired Quill, are a small indie press, who aim to give their authors the best experience possible. The editing process: I don’t know how it works with a big publisher, but for me bringing the book to publication was very much a two-way process. So I’ll use this space to share some of the highs and lows and learning points in case it helps others embarking on the same journey. Publication day was definitely a highlight, but there have been low points too, and it’s been a learning curve. Almost as if the book was not a thing of my creation but an entity with a life of its own, which, in a sense, it is. Holding the book in my hand, looking at the cover, flicking through the pages, seeing my words, beautifully typeset, in a proper published work, brought about an indescribable sense of pride and wonder. 2019 was a momentous year for me, the one in which my first novel got published. As it’s a new year – a new decade, in fact – it seems a good time to look back at the year just gone and reflect.
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