am i human yet?

So last Wednesday I went up to The Big Smoke to visit Random House for the very first time. It’s impressive. Lookit:

The occasion was my first publicity meeting, during which I would meet my new editor, Tom Avery, for the first time, along with Laura Mell my publicist and Vicki Watson from marketing. My lovely agent Susan Armstrong came along for to keep me sensible.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. It certainly wasn’t what actually happened. What actually happened was an amazing publicity plan in which they plan to go for it big time. I know there aren’t any guarantees that my book will be, for example, discussed on Woman’s Hour, in fact it’s probably unlikely to be picked up by them, but just to hear these fine folk talking about it, and with such excitement and enthusiasm, was enough to make me grin like a fool. A very happy fool. I may also have clapped my hands and jigged up and down in my seat a few times too. I may have done that.

So we discussed national and local radio, TV, magazines, papers, online stuff, festivals, readings, you name it.

More grinning, more jigging, more clapping.

A little tour of the offices followed, during which Tom pressed upon me some lovely books, including the recent Vintage reissue of Vonnegut’s Timequake, the ‘restored’ Carver short stories Beginners and many more. My bag was groaning under the weight of great literature by the time I left.

So that was that. They made me feel like a bit of a star. My next meeting with Laura about publicity will be during the first week of November, when she will visit my little burgh of Brighton, be treated to some fine beers in my favourite pub and tell me how we’re going to conquer the world.

And I’m still grinning like a fool.

Tags:   Advice for Strays · novelling · Writing3 Comments