top of page
Search

Out to Launch


My book, Ring Around Rosie, is being launched at Waterstones…

I never thought I’d say those words out loud. It seemed like an impossible outcome at the start of all this, and now that it’s happening I’m not sure how I got this far.

Admittedly, when I finished my book and was ignorant to the ways of the publishing world, I was sure it would be snapped up and I would be swept along on the journey to fame and fortune. But further down the track I’ve learnt that it just doesn’t happen like that anymore. Incessant self-promotion – tirelessly tweeting and blogging and face-booking – that is where I’ve languished for months, feeling no better than a street-seller as I watched my ebook fluctuate up and down the Kindle chart. It’s degrading and desperate, and oddly, at no point during this time have I uttered the words ‘I’m an author’; it hasn’t seemed appropriate, despite the fact that I have written a book, which is for sale on Amazon, that people read! But why is that?

There was me, thinking I was being so modern publishing an ebook. But the truth is there is something so much more ‘real’ about an actual, physical book. The image I held in my mind from the start – the end goal – was receiving hard copies of my book in the post. Holding in my hands something I had created, smelling the newness of the ink, knowing that its pages held a part of me. And I just can’t seem to get that satisfaction with an ebook; despite getting to number 3 on Amazon’s bestseller list for Action & Adventure, and Teenage Mysteries & Thrillers. Because no matter how well my ‘virtual’ book is doing, it’s all led to this moment: my ‘real’ book being launched at Waterstones. ​

bottom of page