BEST ENDEAVOURSJane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.
BEST EFFECTS
There are moments when the penny drops and you think ‘so that’s how it’s done’. And last week, in a palatial room in Reading Town Hall, the smallest coin of the realm came tumbling down in my direction.
The occasion was the launch of Claire Dyer’s latest collection of poetry, Interference Effects. I have known Claire for several years, firstly as a fellow author (although more senior by several ranks) and more recently as a friend. She is also an award winning poet – and now I know that she is absolutely expert at holding launch events.
I find the idea of a book launch of my own both terrifying and strangely alluring. Not because I’m scared to stand up and read – no, I can manage that (thanks to my mother’s insistence on extra-curricular speech & drama lessons at junior school); more because my grass hopper mind can never decide exactly what to do. And even if I could decide, then I’d have to organise it.
First problem: where would I hold it? I live near Chichester, so that makes a certain amount of sense, but none of my books are set there. The Seahorse Summer is based in Studland in Dorset so there’s a logic to holding an event there – but I don’t know anybody, so would anyone come? I’d like to raise some money for Words for the Wounded, so perhaps London. At which point I run screaming for the hills.
Claire held her launch in her home town; it’s really the only sensible thing to do and the room was packed with her friends, fellow writers, former colleagues and other supporters. And I mean packed. When my neighbour Ali (who introduced me to Claire in the first place) and I arrived – late – having battled and lost with Reading’s one way system and early closing multi storey car parks, we could barely edge into the room.
And what a room; easy access (signposted) from the street and inside muted decoration and elegant windows soaring to the sky. A huge platform on which Claire stood to read her wonderful poems (complete with fully functioning sound system); a generously proportioned sales table manned by her publishers, Two Rivers Press; a grand piano in one corner and wall to wall coat racks set at some little distance from the action.
Every detail had been considered. Entertainment while the queue to have books signed snaked across the carpet comprised a talented gentleman cutting silhouettes and a lady pianist working her way through classical preludes. Waiters kept appearing with trays of drinks and canapés – including gluten free options – and the conversation flowed with the wine.
In the centre of it all – the poet herself. Hair neatly coiffed, make up perfect, classic black dress and sparkling rock ‘n’ roll shoes. Having a whale of a time – in her elegant, understated way. By the time Ali and I left I felt uplifted by Claire’s poems and in awe of the whole event. Not only that but a huge lesson was beginning to dawn on me: if you can’t do it as well as this, don’t do it at all. Thank goodness The Seahorse Summer is an ebook…
Claire Dyer’s Interference Effects is published by Two Rivers Press and available through their website and on Amazon. To find out more about Claire and her work please visit www.clairedyer.com.
Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.