CBA to read? Let me read for you. Skip introduction 2:25
Common misconception: every book has a Sex and the City-style launch. Nope. Most books get squeezed onto the shelf with only the sound of a single cork popping in the author’s kitchen.
But I had spent too many years with Amy Elman not to make a bit of a fuss. It would be like crossing the finish line of a marathon without a sound. Besides, who doesn’t like a party in miserable, grey, sober January? Especially a party for a book.
The first thing… to find a venue. Marissa, my agent, and I went on the hunt for a bookshop.
We started off with the big dogs in central London.
“No, sorry, we only launch hardbacks,” said one.
I was tempted to list off the benefits of a paperback. “Unlike a hardback, a paperback is light and flimsy so is easier for your customers to carry around.”
I did not say this, but I was stumbling across another lesson in publishing: not every bookshop wants to launch every book. We moved out of Zone 1 and narrowed our search to independent bookshops. I prefer them anyway; they feel more wholesome. If Waterstones is Hovis, an independent will be your local sourdough.
We found INK@84 in North London. It was near the Arsenal stadium, to the joy of my Spurs-supporting dad. It’s one of those cosy, warm, well-lit bookshops. The wood floor is well-loved, from the many feet of readers searching for their next story. It also has a library ladder that reminds me of Beauty and the Beast. It was the perfect place to launch Amy Elman.
Like every wannabe novelist, I had dreamed of the day my book would be out in the world. I thought it would feel like Christmas, but when I woke up on the 22nd of January, I felt tense, as if I were about to get married. (I have never been married, but I can imagine the whole death-do-us-part thing being quite daunting).
I spent the hours leading up to launch, staring at the walls of my flat, with my badly drawn Louis Theroux cartoon in a frame staring back. I imagined him saying.
“I kept telling you this was going to be nerve-wracking; did you listen? No. You just kept writing, writing, writing…”
“SHUT UP LOUIS!”
I was sent photo after photo of my book as it arrived on friends’ doormats. See. It was fun writing the book, it was more fun telling people it’s getting published, but gosh do they really have to read it? And then, the first review arrived on Amazon. An ARC-P (advanced reader copy-person) had promptly copied her review across from NetGalley as soon as she was able to. 3 stars. Brillant.
I decided to focus on practicing my launch speech.
Public speaking used to be fear. I choked up in front of the class during a public speaking test when I was 16. It was so torturous to witness my English teacher stop me and let me do it later in her office – just for her.
“Guantanamo Bay was a d-dark p-place…” I mumbled into my piece of rattling paper, as Mrs. Roberts stared at the floor.
I thought public speaking may be required when you’re an author, so during my master’s, I became an Oxford tour guide. And despite a few blips (saying spotty dick instead of spotted dick), the job cured me. I still have that fluttering feeling inside, but it’s less of a butterfly house and more like two butterflies swirling around each other.
The key is to practice. So I went round and round my dining room table speaking it aloud.
“Thank you for your carefully crafted questions that led to many mind maps and spirals. And for quietly removing the lines that weren’t funny…”
Soon, it was time to go to my launch.
Getting to Ink@84 was easy now that I’m a North London girl; just two stops on the tube. The only issue was that it was raining, and I had a box of Amy Elman tote bags and another of 50 Amy Elman biscuits. Merchandise isn’t required when you release a book, but I got a little carried away. After a few attempts to carry my tower of boxes, I realised I needed to take an Uber there.
“Break a leg,” Louis called out as I left.
There was that moment we experienced at the start of an event, where you’re wandering around the empty room, nervous that people won’t show, but one by one, people began to arrive. Before I knew it, the place was full of school friends, friends from the Oxford Brookes Creative Writing course, the publishers, the agency, Roman, Sex-Ed Tom, Mum… and Dad, who came wearing his favourite T-shirt – the one with HAHA NO printed across it.
“WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE?” Hermione shouted in the middle of the room, holding her Brompton bike. It was as if she were surprised that I knew other people.
It was strange to have everyone in one space. Again, I’m not married, but I suppose that’s what happens on wedding days. Everyone you know, mushing together like a soup. Well, almost everyone. It was during the very-reheresed speech that I singled out Sausage.
“Sausage, my bestie of twenty years, flew in from America..” I looked up to the crowd and realised that I hadn’t actually seen Sausage yet, or Lettuce. I cleared my throat. “… this morning…”
I had contemplated reading a page in my book, but it seemed a little wanky. Literally. Amy masturbates in the first chapter. It was fun to write alone, but it was another thing to read it out loud with my parents standing there – so we scrapped the reading idea.
Next, it was signing books. It will never feel normal writing your name for a friend. Dad was in there first.
“Can you sign this one for my personal trainer? Say thank you for looking after my dad.”
“But Da-“
“Just here.” He tapped the page.
“And this one to Julie…..And this one to Ronnie…”
Just then, Sausage rocked up with Lettuce.
“Oh, darling, we thought it was a slide-in event,” Lettuce said in her leopard print coat.
“Erm, well, you missed the spee-”
“Is that your book cover on a biscuit?” she asked and left to inspect the biscuit display table.
And then there was Sausage. “I took a photo of my favourite book,” she said, and showed me a selfie she had just taken of her holding up another book. I burst out laughing. Nothing has changed since we were ten.
Those kinds of events, you never have a moment to stop and soak them in. You float from one lively conversation to the next until the hours have flown by. Suddenly, the room is almost empty, and the finish line has been crossed.
I packed up the remaining biscuits and tote bags, and headed home.
“So, how did it go?” Louis said, with his dry smirk.
“It couldn’t have gone better, Louis. It couldn’t have gone better…”
THE QUACK 