Launch preparations

 Here I am again, a little late and a few words short. I have been very busy juggling a few different balls, always mindful that I need to do four dog walks a day, cook, eat, and sleep. But my twelfth Inspector Green novel, SHIPWRECKED SOULS, is due to be released Tuesday January 21 and I have two launches planned -- one in Toronto and one in Ottawa. I wish I could go farther afield and celebrate its release in other major cities but an author's finances can only stretch so far!

A lot goes into a launch party, from choosing the venue, date and time, arranging for the bookseller and the venue, deciding on the format, designing promo materials like posters, and finally, spreading the word so that people actually come.

Below are the posters for both events. I am fortunate that my publisher does the poster designs, much better than I ever could.

Choosing the Toronto venue has always been easy; Toronto has a wonderful independent mystery bookstore, Sleuth of Baker Street, which is always supportive of Canadian crime writers and hosts many signings and launches. These are informal, friendly affairs. I usually provide some drinks and sweets, chat with attendees, many of whom are old friends, chat about the book and do a reading or two.

Choosing the Ottawa venue is more challenging. Because Ottawa is my hometown, I invite more people and like to have a bigger venue than my favourite bookstores can provide. I also tend to make it more of a party. Before the pandemic, I used to book a room or section in a local pub. When the pandemic hit, my launches were relegated to Zoom, which allowed me to reach many more people but lacked the feeling of connection. I'm thrilled now to be back in a pub and looking forward to making it a big party. Irene's Pub in Ottawa is well known in artistic and musical circles and provides a lively, informal venue. For this launch, I will be providing some food platters at my expense, as well as a cash bar and full pub menu. A friend's band is going to provide soft, background jazz to enhance the mood. This is shaping up to be a great party! Here's the invite.

Next, inviting the guests. Besides posting the two invites on my public Facebook and Instagram pages, I use two main sources of potential attendees -- my Facebook friends list and my Contacts list on my computer. Facebook has a very handy, easy-to-use program for designing and sending out the invitations. On the Events tab in the sidebar, choose "Create a new event", and follow the instructions. It allows you to choose which friends to invite to the event, and rather than bothering everyone with the invite, I go through the friends list and choose those from the appropriate city. I miss some, of course, because I don't always know where they live, but I like ensuring I only pick people who might be interested. The invites are delivered not to that person's feed but to their Facebook Messenger. Again, not as intrusive.

Besides this approach, I also write an email describing the event, including the poster, and inviting people to come. I go through my Contacts list to email it out using the BCC feature. Some of these will likely end up in spam filters, which can't be helped.

As part of the preparation for the release, I also updated my website with the events listed, the first chapter of the new book, and other details. I am also going to post on a few blogs, and as part of this I learned one interesting new thing. The Universal Book Link. I had no idea such a thing existed, but Books2read.com creates a universal link where all the links to the book on different sales outlets are collected under this single link. Following the instructions, I set one up for SHIPWRECKED SOULS,  and although it's a work in progress as I am still searching for links to add, this one link will provide the purchaser with a choice of bookstores where the book is available. To illustrate, here's the link I set up. https://books2read.com/u/4Xx0W7

Now I hope everything is in place and all that is needed is for people to come!