Nicole J Simms/ April 20, 2017/ Blog/ 0 comments

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Oldbury Writing Group Book Launch – From Sunrise to Sunset

After months of planning and preparation, our (The Oldbury Writing Group) book launch is finally here. We will be launching our World War Two anthology of poems and short stories titled From Sunrise to Sunset. The book launch will be on Saturday 22nd April (this Saturday, folks) at the Oldbury Library. And for me, it will be my first book launch.

We, as a group, have spent a long time working on this anthology, so while excited, I am a little nervous to see how well our book is received. I’m hoping for a good turnout thanks to our months of advertising: we have put up posters, advertised on our social media pages, been announced on the local radio station, been advertised in newspapers, been listed on event listing websites, such as Discover Sandwell, and we’ve told everyone we know. So, I will be shocked if we don’t have a decent audience.

For the day, we have lots of fun planned. Of course, you will be able to hear poems and short stories from our anthology, take part in a Q&A session and buy a signed copy of our anthology. There will also be a WW2 quiz, and the winner will receive a signed copy of our book and a £25 voucher. And there will be light refreshments available (cake and drink, anyone?).

We’ve all worked so hard to get to this point, and I’m really proud of all of us. I mentioned in February how a book reading event at Wednesbury Methodist Church gave me a glimpse of what it would be like to be an author. Well, I think this launch and book tour will be even better than that because, this time, we are all authors.

My Book Launch Preparation

This book launch is possibly the biggest event we have ever done, which means we could have a big audience. Therefore, I need to make sure that I am prepared to stand out in front of an audience and read out my stories/poems. So, to be able to do that, I have come up with a book launch preparation list:

  1. Read my ‘How to Prepare for a Book Reading Event’ Horror Tree post. I, surprisingly, have some good tips on there. So I will be practising in front of the mirror, timing myself, and faking confidence, etc.
  2. Choose what I want to read. I need to be prepared for the day, so the last thing I want to do is choose what to read at the last minute. I need time to familiarise myself with my chosen pieces, and then practice reading them, so I can work on my pace and presentation.
  3. Write down what inspired each piece that I have chosen to read. This could be used to introduce each story/poem, or it could come in handy for the Q&A session.
  4. Talking about the Q&A session, it’s also a good idea to work out a list of questions that the audience might ask, and prepare some answers for them. It’s not a good look when you’re asked a question, and you have no clue how to answer it. You can’t be prepared for all types of questions, but if you remind yourself why you wrote the stories/poems, what inspired them, and what kind of research you did, then that will help.
  5. Remember to have fun. This isn’t supposed to be painful, scary, yes, painful, no. And I won’t convince the audience to buy our book if I look like I wish I was somewhere else, so it’s important that I act like myself and not read from a piece a paper like a robot.

So, that’s how I plan to prepare for the book launch. I still can’t believe it’s come around so quickly. But I do plan on making the most of it because it’ll be great practice for when I finally have a finished book of my own.

If you want to find out more about The Oldbury Writing Group’s book launch, then see our ‘Book Launch’ page. We will also be going on a book tour; you can find all the dates on our ‘Book Tour Dates’ page.

I’ll let you all know how the book launch went. I will also be tweeting about it on the day. I’ll be using the hashtag #OWGBooklaunch, so keep an eye out for that. Wish me luck!

Keep writing, folks!

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