… and Little Taco Truck is out in the wide, wide world, I’ve taken some time to recover from the book launch.  I have some thoughts.

• I’m blown away by the support I was/am surrounded by at the launch: Friends from high school, friends from work, family, other writers I’d only seen at conferences, neighbors, and friends of my kids…. are you kidding me?!?!?!  TEENAGERS took time out of their weekend to drive to a kids’ bookstore to celebrate with me!?!?!?

• Even if they are too crispy around the edges to bend or too gooey in the middle to stay together, taco cookies are kind of amazing and no one seemed to care or notice that they were wonky. I should not have stressed.

 

 

 

• RSVPs are important. Having a general idea of  the number of attendees would have meant (1) the store staff didn’t have to scramble to add more chairs and (b) we would not have run out of books mid-way through the event. I’ll pay more attention to this next time. My bad.

• Oh – and expect attendees to buy more than one copy! I did not see this coming.

• But if you DO run out of books, shoppers can order more, ask the shop to have to sign them, and pick them up when they are ready. At least that’s what Little Shop Of Stories is doing. Genius.

• Enlist help. The store staff was incredibly supportive and helpful and clearly wanted the launch to go well. But don’t forget to ask friends and family to help out too. My son manned the cookie table (with NO ulterior motives, I’m sure) and my husband took a billion pictures.

• Have a GREAT time! The launch felt like any other huge, terrifying, exciting, long-awaited event – a wedding, the birth of a child, finally losing that last 10 lbs (I’ll throw a party when that happens). Do your best to breathe and take it all in. You will never have another First Book Launch.  This is a HUGE deal!

P.S. – It’s been nearly a month since the launch and I am finally finishing this post. But … this is a good thing because I have come to learn that the launch is more than that day. I didn’t quite get this. It felt so important that all social media and book sales and the hoopla happened on launch day. But there’s so much more to it. Since the launch:

• • • Friends ordered and ship BOXES of books to my house for my signature.

    • Photos of adorable kids fwith Little Taco Truck arrived in my social media feed almost daily!

• • • I have a radio interview scheduled. Want to be interviewed? Ask your publicist to make it happen. If I can get an interview, you can too.

    • For their Dia de los Ninos celebration, a library in Texas featured Little Taco Truck complete with a pinata!
      

So expect post-launch awesomeness and enjoy the ride.  Now get back to writing so you can make the magic happen again!