Book Launch After Action Report

And a link to buy signed copies of Volume II

So yesterday was a decompression day. Decompression afternoon; the morning was busy. The afternoon was beer and movies and doggie snuggles.

One of the things I did yesterday morning was drop off a bunch of signed copies of both volumes of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down at Owl’s Nest Books. Before I give you the link, a couple of notes.

First, ALL books in their online store are signed by me. I signed about 500 books in the last week and was starting to get fancy.

Second, ignore where is says “On Order” for Volume II. They’re in store now and ready to ship immediately.

And they will ship immediately, so you’ll get V2 faster than anywhere else because print on demand can be kinda slow, especially for a brand-new book that isn’t “warm in the system” as my publishing guy says. Yeah, you will have to pay more for shipping if you order via Owl’s Nest than if you got it from Amazon, but it’s an awesome independent bookstore that’s been around something like four decades and I like supporting them. The list price is the same as other online retailers, and it’s the ONLY place to get signed copies.

Final note before I talk about the book launch party. I highly recommend a matched set of V1 and V2 hardcovers. They really do look awesome. The big 7x10 in the casebound cover are a delight to behold, but I might be a bit biased. Makes an awesome gift too, so you can save on shipping and buy a bunch and have them all shipped in one package.

HERE IS THE LINK TO BUY SIGNED COPIES.

Okay so this event. I didn’t die.

At first, I wasn’t sure why I did it, but I’m happy I did. It was something that just sort of snowballed.

The original plan, months ago, was to do a typical book launch reading thing at Owl’s Nest. But when they saw how many signed copies they were selling, and how a shit-ton of people showed up just for a signing session, they said yeah we don’t have enough room.

So I said fuck it and hired an event planner and we put it all together and sold all the tickets in only two weeks. It was stressful as fuck until the day of, but it all worked out. My event planner was amazing.

We were in a place called The Hemingway Room, so of course there needed to be an open bar. I bought a shit ton of beer from a local craft brewery, plus lots of good wine (chardonnay for white, and shiraz and pinot noir for red). I also got Costco-sized bottles of rum and vodka for mixed drinks and we didn’t run out.

We did run out of cheese buns, dammit. My bad.

I spent a thousand bucks at Glamorgan Bakery, which is famous for their cheese buns. I got 120 for 110 people, and plenty of people ate more than one and I should have anticipated that. I tried to make up for it though, because we had nine dessert trays and at the end of the night there were still lots of desserts left and I had the foresight to bring sandwich baggies so I told people to load up and take some treats home, and they did. If I ever do something like this again, there will be way more cheese buns.

But about the desserts, these things are fucking crack. My sister-in-law said you gotta try these and I did then I said oh shit we need to take some of these home and the next day I ate five of them. Hits every pleasure center in the brain. Dangerous shit.

We also had a vegan / gluten free table and all that disappeared. Elaine, the publisher from IMPACT Magazine, which is a Calgary sport / fitness magazine and the first place I was every published back in 2009 was there. She’s vegan so I wanted to make sure there were treats that those who don’t consume animal products and/or are gluten free could eat.

Okay so what happened at the event.

It ran from 7-9 but people began showing up at 6:30 and stayed until almost 10. My daughter was an absolute rock star. She was running the check in table but also just kind of took charge of shit to cover for anything that the event planner Natasha couldn’t do because she was pretty fucking busy too. That young woman showed real leadership, just seeing shit that needed to be done and doing it, and even directing my wife on some tasks. They were both amazing.

Natasha had hired Danielle to run the book sales table, and we sold quite a few additional copies. I wasn’t really thinking that I was going to do much in the way of personalizing books, because I’d signed them all in the days leading up to the event. But the initial people showing up asked me to so I sat at the table next to Danielle and started writing personal notes and then a line formed and that’s what I did for the next hour. It actually worked out great because it gave everyone who wanted to a chance to meet with me and chat for a moment and get a selfie if they wanted.

We were actually all too busy to take photos but here is another that was sent to me, shared with permission.

I write a lot of about the evils of colonialism in the two books, and so prior to my speech we hired Sahtu Dene woman and activist Michelle Robinson to give the land acknowledgement. Then Natasha introduced me, and I didn’t choke.

I spoke for just under 30 minutes. My son said he could tell I was nervous for the first few minutes, but when people started laughing at my jokes I visibly relaxed and was good after that. It was half telling stories about how my writing career had developed—with ample discussion of how amazing my wife is and how privileged I am to have her by my side these 33 years—interspersed with reading four carefully selected stories, two from each volume.

We did get video of the speech. I haven’t seen it yet. I’ll share it at some point unless I was totally delusional and actually sucked.

Then it was back to the book signing table for more personalizing but by about 8:45 I was able to go out and chat with some folks and do a bit of drinking. My best friend and my sister were there, and so was my sister-in-law and her husband. The book format designer, my copy editor, and my proof-reader were all there; I’d thanked all of them during my speech.

My son got a bit tipsy and said to me, “Doesn’t the bartender sound exactly like Kim Wexler from Better Call Saul? He was right, she did. She—her name is Shelby—was great too.

As things were wrapping up and I was chatting with those who remained my daughter took charge once again, with my wife helping, to Tetris leftover books and booze into the back of the van.

Financially, I broke even. Well, I got paid in a fair bit of leftover booze. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun. Most important is that I think the people who attended had fun, and that made me feel good. My wife especially had a great time and was proud of me.

Oh that reminds me of one thing. A guy who was in the master’s program in history with me at U of C, Derek, who I shared an office with, told me after my speech, “Dr. Archer would have been proud.”

Christon Archer was my thesis adviser. He died late last year. That hit me. I was choked up by what Derek said.

I know this was kind of a boring tale because nothing outrageous happened at the event. It basically ran pretty smooth and I was proud of my ability to get 110 people to pay to show up to a book launch, and I was pretty happy with my speech too. It’s got me thinking that maybe I should work on doing some more public speaking.

There have been many requests for me to do a similar type of thing in other cities, but the reality is that even with an event planner this was a shit-ton of work that I’m in no hurry to do again. If someone wants to do all the planning for me and pay me to fly there, then I’m probably down for that, but event management is not my thing.

Don’t forget to buy your signed copies of both volumes here.

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