Bespoke Book Launch by Isabel Gillard
It was in the lull after the storm that it first occurred to someone. The last proofs had been returned, accepted on both sides, Circe’s Island was no longer a forthcoming book; it had arrived. Specifically on the website of Unbound Press. It looked good there. The enormous arched windows depicted on the cover divided the blazingly sunny day outside from the dark interior behind them. The imagination rioted, creating its own monsters in the dimness. The local newspaper, here in the Midlands, had generously given me a full-page profile, flattering and attractive. Another, more far-flung one, had given the book a very warm review. The iron was hot. It was time to strike. But how?
My long-term dream, perhaps every writer’s dream, of being discovered as a bright, new talent and winkled out of my private niche by an admiring public had long since faded; I know how pro-active the modern writer has to be to merit attention. It was my writing daughter, in fact, who suggested a book launch. ‘Make it a celebration, Mum!’ she advised and, after a few mental somersaults on my part, that is exactly what we did.
We hired a roomy hall in the village that we knew would accommodate forty people and sent out three dozen invitations. The invitees were from many walks of life, but we tried to concentrate on known readers and writers. I decided to keep refreshments simple and bought lots of tasty savouries and a selection of Thornton’s caramel squares, brownies etc.; few can resist them. It was a naked invitation to abandon self-restraint. We decided that drink meant an alcoholic beverage, although it was to be a morning engagement, and chose Pimm’s No. 1, with the further choice of orange juice for the pure at heart.
I enlarged the Book Cover to A3 size and found a prominent place to pin it at the entrance to the room. Inside we pinned up copies of the attractive illustrations used in the book and a selection of the commendations it had had. Oh and a crisp, white linen towel featuring Alan Bennet’s ‘The Uncommon Reader‘ with a giant crown in the centre and a pair of Unbound-Press-type spectacles below it. There were chairs, grouped easily round a scatter of small tables for the listening bits, but we allowed a good half hour for circulating before we introduced any of that. I was glad to see friends and former colleagues, unseen for many months, and they were glad to see each other, so everyone was soon quite animated.
It was very much a family affair. My husband used his basso profundo to get attention and our elder daughter launched into the intended reading. Only she didn’t. She launched into a few minutes of praise of her mother; her undoubted talent, her modesty, her previous accomplishments. I didn’t know myself, but hoped that the view through her rose-coloured spectacles might be adopted by the listeners, making them more receptive to my later words. I was glowing.
While she read, most beautifully, the dramatic passage from Chapter 2, I composed myself to talk about Circe’s Island.
Normally at this point an editor or publisher would have risen and extolled the drama of the story, the range of emotion, the clever use of images, the subtle cadences of the prose, but this was a DIY version; I couldn’t do any of those things. I could, however, tell how reliving the experience and researching the medical background had changed my life. How I discovered that the cure for TB, although a
massive breakthrough, has not stretched far beyond Europe and the west. How there are 8,000,000 new cases of tuberculosis every year and how one third of the world’s population is infected. How there are strategies in place to cure everybody and all we need is more money. – and how the profits from Circe’s Island can help here.
At this point my invitees were already queuing up to buy a book (bless them all!) Some gave more than the stated price and my glow had spread over the whole room. My one regret? That I did not invite more people – and the local press.
Isabel Gillard
General Management: Peter Gillard and Louise Owen
Table Arrangements: Beth Owen and Lottie Allnatt
Photographs: Lottie Allnatt
Reader: Judith Allnatt
