Publication Day

So, what does an author actually do on publication day?

I’m in a pretty good position to answer this question, today of all days. 

Wilderness Wars is out. OUT!!!

• You get up, see some tweets already, pinch yourself, accept your good fortune and decide to interact with the world for a bit.
• You walk the dog. A complete stranger stops you at the newsagent to ask if you are ‘that book woman’, and to compliment the cuteness of the dog, both of which goes down well.
• You fire off a press release or two.
• You press-gang daughter to take a picture of you holding your book in the garden, which turns out not to be a resounding success. (Not her fault, I should add. Of all days to have a spluttering cold, with flushed cheeks and puffy eyes…)
• You eat, out of sheer joy. Daughter’s shift has been cancelled and you take her out for lunch and ice-cream! Rest of the family is away doing actual worthwhile things.
• You sit down to write a blog post before thinking about mundane things like teenage taxi-ing and dinner.
• Every five seconds or so, you catch yourself looking at the book – just sitting there on the edge of the table, and you worry that it might just disappear altogether.
• And then you hear emails, tweets and notifications pinging in and you realise: THIS IS REAL!