Tuesday 7 July 2009

Books and Booze

Last night's launch party went well - if anyone who came along is reading this, thanks again for your support and I hope you all enjoyed yourselves! Jeremy from Swan Books in Upminster - who someone referred to during the evening as my 'tame bookseller' - did a great job selling books for me, taking the heat off me as I hate having to 'think money' while concentrating on signing books and (of course) socialising!
It's great to have a good relationship with a local independent bookseller - that's him with me in the pic - as it's so beneficial to both of us. Independent bookshops will do all they can to support their local authors, and of course the more of my books he can sell, the better it is for him as well as for me.

Signing books as 'Olivia' does take some concentration, as it's not my real name, and before becoming Olivia Ryan I was writing (and signing!) books under my own name. So far I haven't made any mistakes and signed a book with the wrong name - and to my surprise, the 'Olivia' signature flows quite well now - even after a couple of beers ...

It was great to celebrate with my lovely family and friends - including ex-colleagues from the hospital where I used to work, and two of my 'writing buddies' - Fenella and Fay who are fellow Essex Girls from the RNA.

Although I've had launch parties before, for my previous books, this was the first one I've done as Olivia, so all three 'Tales From' books were available and it was nice that we sold some copies
of the first two books as well as lots of copies of 'Tales from a Honeymoon Hotel'. So I'm happy to say it was definitely a success and I'm grateful to Irene and Ted at the Baker's Arms in Stock for letting me have the party there again.
Here's a nice artistic
picture, taken by one of my daughters,
that I think sums up perfectly the ethos of the evening:

Books and Booze! Not a bad combination!


9 comments:

  1. What fun Olivia! Lovely pictures. It sounds like a great night.

    I am reading Hen Weekend at the moment (well not at this exact moment obviously) but it's my bedtime read and I'm really enjoying it.

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  2. Aw, thanks Teresa! So glad you're enjoying it. Hope the Hen girls' antics don't keep you awake at night!

    And yes, it was a lovely night, thanks.

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  3. Hi, Olivia. Glad the evening went well. It's nice when you have an independent book seller who you get on with. My local independent book shop is wonderful and are used to me wondering around breathing in the atmosphere!

    Julie xx

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  4. Hi Julie, and thanks.
    Yes - I'm lucky Jeremy didn't mind coming all the way from his shop in Upminster - halfway across Essex really. His other shop, much nearer to me, has had to close down which I blogged about a while ago, and which we're all really upset about. We have to hang onto those 'inde' shops that are left, and cherish them! x

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  5. I am so happy that it went so well. Congratulations

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  6. Thank you, Gonna Be. Just wish all of you (fellow bloggers) lived near enough and could have come along to have a drink with me too.

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  7. Congratulations, Olivia :-)

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  8. Thank you Amanda, and thank you, Kate! x

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