I’m finally home after 5 weeks of marathon travel that came on the back of the release of my debut novel. So much has happened I don’t know if there’s any way to adequately do any of it justice. Hell, just the TL;DR version is a lot to take in:
- 9/15 – Official launch of Falling into Midnight, including a release party at Gangplank in Chandler
- 9/20 – Flew to Houston for the Writing Excuses Retreat 2019 cruise
- 9/21 – Got a personal tour of the Johnson Space Center by my friend and fellow author Benjamin K Hewett
- 9/23 – Boarded the Liberty of the Seas with more than 100 other writers to commune, learn, and visit Roatan, Belize, and Cozumel together
- 9/30 – Return home to spend 4 days recombobulatng and repacking
- 10/5 – Fly to Berlin for a week
- 10/14 – Relocate to Hamburg for a week
- 10/20 – Stop by Brussels for 4 days
- 10/24 – Chunnel to London to see friends and former coworkers
- 10/27 – The long flight home
It was such a wonderful experience, but I’m pretty wiped out after so much.
The launch party at Gangplank went even better than I’d hoped. When you throw a party your friends are always excited and say they’ll attend, but people are flakes, adults have busy lives, and events like these will always be more important to you than to everyone else. So, I went in with low expectations only to be shocked that almost everyone who said they would attend actually made it. I met a lot of new people who knew Jill through old jobs or local groups, and I even had a few show up that I only ever see at Phoenix Comicon/fest/fusion (whatever the hell it’s called this week). I sold almost twice as many books as I’d been hoping for, which was another wonderful surprise. In fact, I never really got the chance to just sit back and take it all in, as new people would show up before my previous conversation had the chance to die down. All said, a very good day and a better reception for my first novel than I had dared hope for.
Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe still has signed paperbacks available if you didn’t get the chance to attend the launch party. Email me a copy of your receipt and I’ll send you the ebook for free!