Launch Wrap Up

For better or for worse, Memory's Wake has been released into the wild. The official release has been pretty intense from my point of view. Terrifying, exciting, surprising, satisfying, and generally great. I'm actually looking forward to leaving it alone for a while now and recovering my nerves. Releasing a book is like putting a handmade baby up on display and waiting to see what people think- Ok, handmade baby is a weird frankenstein concept, but a book is an author's baby, but one where every part has been hand crafted with their skills and choices and ideas. All praise and fault lies with them, unlike the basic baby metaphor of birthing something you only have a little control over. I've been blown away by reviews so far from those who've received and read their copies already. You can see some of them at http://memoryswake.com/reviews/ I'm more grateful than I can say. There's a lot of insecurity that goes along with the handmade frankenstein book baby (I probably need to lose that metaphor…). My husband tells me it's a great story. So does my mum. We all know they are bias. The authors critique group I joined generally said positive things which feels like a better judging point. And now readers are enjoying it. And still… there's always a little voice inside that tells me it's no good, that people are just being nice. This is why the BEST reviews, the ones that make me happy and bouncy all day, are the ones that GET the story. When I read a review where someone understands how hard I worked to create the interesting and believable twists in the story, or sees the characters for being both flawed and strong in the ways I tried to show them to be, that is what makes everything worth it. Knowing that I wrote the story well enough that readers understand it. It sounds silly, but in my mind, that's the best way for me to judge the quality of what I've written, that readers are getting out of the story what I tried to put in. I know not everyone will, but that's ok too. Not everyone will like everything. In a few weeks time when more people have received their copies and have had a chance to read, I'm going to have some fun, super-spoiler Q&A time for anyone who has questions from the story (which will no doubt also talk a bit about what's going to happen to the characters next!). I will also post about a bunch of "easter eggs" and funny references I placed through the book. They might only be funny to me, but they are there! For now, the launch event is over, sales prices have ended, and the Massive Book Launch Prize Draw has been drawn and winners announced. Also, I sold a great big stack of books, which is really pretty cool. I'm going on holiday in a few weeks time, to lie beside a pool and...