Unfortunately, I don’t have any pics or footage yet, but I’ll do up a special page of images and that later.
For now, here are my thoughts on the afternoon/evening – Firstly, I looked FABULOUS! My hair was terrific, the dress diabolical in a way only those of us who are well-endowed can manage and overall, was pretty fantastic. I was doing fine nerves-wise until we were in the car, on the way to the bookstore and it all started to hit. Luckily, the wine was already out when we got there, so I grabbed myself a glass.
The crowd was huge – I think I had RSVPs from around sixty people. I tried to make my way around to speak to everyone, but I’m sure I missed people. If I did, I’m sorry. It was particularly pleasing to see so many members of my family there, who are all so insanely proud of me. The best moment – my brother telling me he’d read the book the day before and loved it. He’s very picky about what he reads, so for him to get so into a book means in his mind it’s really something.
Donna and Maxine did a wonderful job of the speeches. Poor Donna’s been so busy lately, it was wonderful for her to do what she did. Maxine gave this fabulous speech which would have brought tears to my eyes if it wasn’t also funny. Another favourite moment – Maxine so in love with one of the characters that she wants to read his story early.
Then I spoke and I read part of the book out – it’s so sad when you start reading your own book and you find all these terrible sentences, and uses of the wrong word. Must do better with remaining two books.
Then the signing. The line was long, and my author signature is still a work in progress, and I was so happy and a little giddy that some signatures were extremely weird. Hold onto them folks – they may be worth something one day.
We sold between 55-60 books, which I was really happy with.
Then close friends and family headed back to our place, and the party continued until after midnight. Again, I tried to get around to as many people as I could, and spend time with them, but it was still quite a crush so if someone missed out, again my apologies.
Page 310 has become infamous. Much was made of the sex scenes, and there’s been some interesting moments already. Such as when my cousin found her thirteen-year-old daughter (and one of my god-daughters) had read the book. Sarah says she realised there were certain pages she didn’t want to read and she skipped them, just reading the last sentence until it was safe to read the whole page again. We’re wondering how accurate that is …
Anyway, someone flicked open the book to page 310 and read the first sentence, which features the word ‘clitoris’. I’m not sure how many people made it past that sentence, but it became the catch-phrase of the night – page 310.
If they’re freaked by that, wait until they read the next two books :)
It was a wonderful celebration and marked both the beginning and the end of my real involvement with Secret Ones. Sure, I have promotional stuff to do but the book it out there, it’s launched, and really the main thing is hoping that I’ve written a good enough story to catch people and get them telling others to buy the book.
Signs so far are good on that front.