MFA Thesis Novel was released last Tuesday (wooooooooo!), though for me, the real release day felt like last Saturday, when I held the novel launch party at Main Street BookEnds in my hometown of Warner, New Hampshire.
This was a BIG day for me—as in, I wanted it to be as big as I could make it. It was also my second time doing a reading at BookEnds (the first was back in 2019 when I released Eikaiwa Bums), and because this reading was for an actual novel, I wanted it to be even better.
Preparing
I did a fair amount of promotion for the event beforehand: besides getting it up on the BookEnds website, I put up flyers around town, mentioned it in some blog posts, sent out a message on my email list, made a Facebook event, sent it to the town email newsletter, and personally invited friends and family. This took up a fair amount of time throughout April, when I was already busy prepping for other aspects of the book release.
One thing that was super-cool was seeing the event publicized elsewhere around the net: the Concord Monitor newspaper ran an ad for it, and it was featured on the northern New England literary page, Literary North.
Two days before the reading I checked in with Katharine Nevins, the BookEnds owner, about logistics for set-up, using the television to show my PowerPoint presentation, and handling sales. The store had already ordered novel copies straight from the publisher, but I was also bringing bookmarks, stickers, and a few other zines and volumes to sell, which required some logistics with pricing, etc.
I spent most of the week before the event planning and practicing my presentation. Rather than just reading straight from the book, I wanted to talk about the circumstances that led to my writing it, including going to grad school in Nebraska, having trouble in writing workshop, not fitting in socially, and being inspired by a number of other authors. I made a PowerPoint that was a mix of bullet points and pictures, and planned to speak mostly off the cuff (which I was used to doing as a teacher!).
The Big Day
The morning of the event I came up early with a friend to arrange chairs and set up the merch table (basically a table with all of my stuff for sale) so I could have everything set and done. I also brought a clipboard and sign-up sheet so people could sign up for my email mailing list if they weren’t already. BookEnds has a fairly large gallery space they can use for bigger events, and we set up about fifty chairs, since that was about the number of people who came last time.
The event started at 2:00pm, and beforehand I ran through my slideshow one more time and made sure to eat a solid lunch. My one regret was that I wish I’d also taken time to relax before the event, since when it finally started I found myself tightly wound from all the excitement, anticipation, and (if I’m being honest) nerves.
People started trickling in close to 2:00, and we waited an extra five minutes for everyone to arrive. Katharine gave me a marvelous introduction and read a selection from the novel that she’d really liked, and it was clear that the crowd was in high spirits.
The actual presentation is kind of a blur now, but the audience seemed to find it fun—I built in a fair number of jokes, references to pop culture, and personal anecdotes that drew some laughs and reactions, so I was really happy about how that went. I definitely goofed up badly in the beginning by accidentally clicking forward too many times on my PowerPoint remote and ruining the surprise dedication to my parents, and while this definitely made me flustered, it seemed to go over OK.
My one big regret, though, is that I DEFINITELY made the presentation too long—I spoke for about an hour, which had felt OK when I was rehearsing but seemed to be too much for an in-person event. Not only did the audience seem to get fatigued, I felt myself getting low on energy, and more nervous, which made it more difficult to speak clearly. If I could do one thing over again, I definitely would have shaved twenty or so minutes off the middle of the slideshow.
After the presentation I read a section of the novel (the opening of Chapter 15, when Craig rags on grad school and Flip sees his ludicrous action-filled novel outline), which definitely got laughs and held people’s attention. I’d really wanted to read this particular section (one of my favorites in the novel, but also the straight-up funniest), but realized it had a lot of cursing in it, and that there would be kids present. So, I took inspiration from watching R-rated movies on TV in the ’90s where they’d censor out the swear words with bad dubbing, and did this same thing during the reading (“If you want original DOG SNOT you’ve got to hit up small presses…”), which seemed to go over well with the crowd.
I also did a Q&A section where people could raise their hands and ask me anything, and a fair number of people had questions: Did you end up changing your writing to suit the people in the workshop? How long did it take you to write the book? How did you adjust to meeting people in Nebraska? What was it like getting the novel published? And why that title???
Overall I thought the Q&A went really well, since people were engaged, I felt confident answering their questions, and it gave me a chance to expand on some aspects of the novel I hadn’t talked about.
My friend Josh Bresslin was cool enough to video my reading for his author YouTube channel (which you should totally check out!) and overdub it with commentary about launching your first book, so you can get an idea of the atmosphere at the actual reading.
And After
I closed out the presentation with some calls to action: follow me on social media, review the book on Goodreads or Amazon (which is SUPER helpful for algorithms and such!), and buy some cool stuff. I pointed out some of the zines and edited collections I had for sale, and encouraged people to support their local bookstore and contribute to the community.
People formed a line immediately, and I got to talk to a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in a while and sign some books. Most of the people there had already pre-ordered the novel from my webstore, but some had made specific plans to buy it that day, and BookEnds definitely made a few sales :-)
Finally, when things died down, I cleaned up the room with the help of some friends, putting away chairs, moving tables, and putting the art back where we’d found it. When the gallery was finally back to normal and all the books had been packed away, I went out with my closest friends for a celebratory drink at a nearby bar, then met my family for a smaller get-together.
After that, I went back home and crashed hard—I was exhausted.
Final Thoughts
All told, about 50 or so people showed up—about the same as at my last reading in 2019. Everyone wore masks, and Katharine was happy to be hosting in-person events again after a long COVID closure. Still, having an event on a Saturday afternoon didn’t work for everyone, and a fair number of people I’d invited had other plans that day, while at least three others succumbed to spring colds and decided to stay home just in case.
Still, I was HUGELY happy that so many people did show up, especially people who came from a long distance (shout out to my Aunt Tricia who drove up from Connecticut!), those who bought extra copies of the novel for their friends, and everyone who showed up, stopped to chat, and otherwise supported this crazy event.
In retrospect, my biggest mistakes were making the presentation too long, not being careful with my remote, and not properly relaxing before the event. I was happy with how I handled publicity, setup, and the Q&A section, and I’d like to make future events more personal and intimate (not to mention shorter!!). In a lot of ways, I’d built up the launch party so much in my mind that when it was over, it felt like kind of a letdown, but I think that’s normal given the amount of pressure I’d put on myself. Now that the big event is over, I DEFINITELY won’t feel that kind of stress about future events ;-)
Again, MANY thanks to everyone who attended, to Sam O’Day for taking this post’s cover photo and a host of other pics, to Josh Bresslin and Joe Face for taking video, Katharine Nevins for hosting the event and providing a TON of support, and to everyone who helped set up and put away tables and chairs (too many to list here). Your support means a TON, and thanks for coming out!!!