We held the Canadian launch of Fae this past weekend at When Words Collide in Calgary.
I was so nervous. SO nervous. I’d never hosted a book launch before, hell, I’d never even spoken at a convention before*. So. Freaking. Nervous.
I shouldn’t have been, it was amazing.
To start I said a (very) few words, then turned the floor over to Laura VanArendonk Baugh. Laura had come all the way from Indianapolis to attend the launch (and the convention) and it was fantastic to get to meet her and hang out. Laura read some of her amazing Fae story, And Only The Eyes of Children and definitely left the audience wanting more.
Oh! The audience. Did I mention the audience?
When Laura said she would be coming to the convention I said something like, “That would be great, but I’ve never done one of these so I don’t know how many people to expect. It could just be me, you and Adria playing pinochle.” She came anyway, and dudes? It wasn’t just the three of us. We had a full room:
That’s not actually everyone but it gives you an idea. Definitely not just us playing cards 🙂
One of the biggest reasons we had a great turnout is because of Adria Laycraft, here she is reading from her Fae story, Water Sense:
Adria was a juggernaut when it came to inviting people to the launch (both this physical one in Calgary and our online one at Facebook where she won a prize for being the person to invite the most people).
Anywho… Adria read from her story, Water Sense. She was a strong and engaging reader and though I’d (obviously) read her story several times before it was great to hear it come alive in her voice.
Adria recently co-edited an anthology called Urban Green Man with Janice Blaine, and thinking that green men and fairies go together incredibly well, I’d invited her to have some of the contributors to that anthology read as well. Thus, we were lucky enough to hear some work from it too including a poem by Peter Storey and stories from Randy McCharles and Billie Milholland.
We sold a couple copies of Fae at the launch on Friday afternoon but we also had copies available downstairs at the shared author’s table (which I understand is run by IFWA). On Saturday afternoon I got a Facebook message from Adria which said, essentially, “Rhonda, the dealer’s room is sold out of copies of Fae, do you have any more?”
I didn’t.
We sold every copy of Fae I brought with me.
OMG YAY!
(On a somewhat related note, I’m pretty sure Urban Green Man and Laura’s book Con Job: a murder mystery
So freaking happy!
At the same time I feel bad for the people who wanted to get a copy but couldn’t. If you still need to pick up a copy, follow this link. That will take you to World Weaver Press’s Fae page. From there you can order copies directly from them or you can pick up a copy from your favourite retailer using WWP’s direct links to places it is available.
-or-
Ask your local bookstore or library to order it in.
I will also have a handful of copies at World Fantasy and Pure Spec.
In the meantime, I’m totally calling our launch of Fae at WWC a success. And who knows, maybe that’s where we’ll launch Corvidae and Scarecrow next year. You just never know 😉
Some more pictures from our launch, I apologise for the quality of these pictures but I had to choose between bringing my good camera and fewer books or my crappy camera and more books. I went with the crappy camera and more books… which we sold out, so I think I made the right choice 🙂
*I don’t usually get nervous speaking in public, but there’s something about talking about any of my books that is a big exception to that LOL
