Your First Published Novel: Part 14

Death by Cliché.

It's been September since I updated you on my first novel, mainly because not a lot has happened. The time between turning in the final edit and the release of the book has a fairly broad dead spot at the begning of it. There is general whining and pestering of course. Maybe some crying. But you don't need to hear about Wymore's personal life.

But now we're almost two months out from release, so things are moving again.

About a month ago we recieved the first concept pieces for the cover. Overall, I liked the direction they were heading. They asked me my opinion and told me their favorite. I was my favorite as well. I had some notes on the general look and feel, concerns based on just how unfinished the concepts were and how finished they were supposed to be (I haven't approved concepts quite like this before, so I wasn't sure how crude they were SUPPOSED to look.) I turned those in and the people at CQ assured me that they had the same notes.

Meanwhile, it's time to start marketing. We decided some time ago that a podcast tour might be better than a blog tour. I know a fair amount of podcasters, so most of those I'm just going to set up myself, but there are a couple places I'd like to appear that I thought could use a little legitamacy to set me apart from the self publishing crowd. So I turned those two names in to the marketing team so they can approach the sites as a publisher rather than an author pushing is own work. I think that will work out.

I've also started thinking about my book release party. Here's the thing. For my first book, anyone who's likely to come to my book release party is either going to buy my book anyway, or will never buy it under any circumstances (that is, friends and family). :) Just having a traditional book release really only serves the purpose of giving me practice at holding a traditional book release. If I sold one additional copy from it, I'd be pleasantly surprised.

So I decided that I wanted to do something different. I know a fair number of comedians in Utah, so I pinged them on Facebook and asked if they'd like to perform at a book release party. Four said yes and another person agreed to MC. I bounced this off the CQ people and they liked the idea but thought that it might not go over well at a Barnes and Noble. Nikki at CQ suggested that I try a comic book store. I adjusted that idea slightly and decided to approach Hatur's Games and Comics. 

They seemed ammenible so we set a date. Then I contacted the commedians and discovered that date was right in the middle of Phoenix Comic Con. Which I knew, dammit. So I called by and rearranged. The book release party is about a week and a half after the book's actual release, but that shouldn't matter much with a first book. On later releases, it might be more important.

I expect the commedians will bring in new blood. People will only come to my release party for my first book because they already know about my book. People will come to see the commedians, howerver, who have never heard of me. 

So thats where things stand. The book releases on May 30th. The book release party is June 11th. My mad scramble escalates steadily from now until then.