{"id":21585,"date":"2015-04-23T03:55:30","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T10:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=21585"},"modified":"2015-04-23T03:55:30","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T10:55:30","slug":"what-if-you-threw-a-book-launch-and-everybody-came","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/what-if-you-threw-a-book-launch-and-everybody-came\/","title":{"rendered":"What If You Threw a Book Launch — And Everybody Came?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A room full of empty chairs greeted me at Book Passage. Cerridwen Fallingstar, who would be reading from “Wrestling with God,” was there with\u00a0her mother. But would anyone else come?\u00a0Photo by Jon Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

Was anyone going to show up? My book launch at\u00a0Book Passage in Marin county would be starting in a few minutes, and there were rows and rows of\u00a0empty chairs, waiting to be filled.<\/p>\n

\"Barbara<\/a>
There it is, three copies of my book on the second shelf from the bottom, just to the left of one by the wonderful Henry Nouwen. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cheese platter was laid out. The wine was uncorked. And I’d practiced my little speech and the reading\u00a0from Wrestling with God<\/em>\u00a0that I planned to do.<\/p>\n

(I had decided to go for laughs. I would read the story about the atheist who wanted\u00a0God to participate in a scientific experiment. Also the\u00a0story\u00a0about the Buddhist monk who tried way too hard to attain enlightenment.)<\/p>\n

Cerridwen Fallingstar<\/a>\u00a0was there in the store. She’s\u00a0the Wiccan priestess whose story is also included in my book. She’d be reading\u00a0from her passage.\u00a0But what if nobody else came? What if we have the cheese platter\u00a0and the wine, and the books stacked\u00a0by the cash register\u00a0— and only a couple of people\u00a0show up?<\/p>\n

I’m not the only author who lives in fear of arriving at a carefully planned author event only to find that just\u00a0a handful of people have come to see them. Many big publishers have stopped sending their authors on tour, partly because all that expensive travel doesn’t necessarily\u00a0pay off, and partly because they don’t want their authors humiliated by a miniscule\u00a0turn-out.<\/p>\n

But on April 11, people came. They really did. And it was amazing. People\u00a0turned up for this book launch from all parts of my life — college friends who still call me Barbie, three of Jon’s Marin county cousins, some writing group buddies who’ve read parts of this book many times over, a San Francisco Chronicle\u00a0colleague that I don’t see nearly enough of. And people I just plain don’t know.\u00a0It was magical.<\/p>\n

Thanks, everybody. It meant a lot to me to spend the evening\u00a0with you.<\/p>\n

Another book party for <\/em>Wrestling with God<\/a><\/strong> is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 13, at A Great Good Place for Books<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a06120 La Salle Ave, Oakland, California. Come join us. There will be more wine and more cheese. We’ll celebrate.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Lots of people came to the book launch — some I knew and some I didn’t. Photo by Jon Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Barbara<\/a>
Cerridwen read from her passage in the book. Photo by Jon Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Was anyone going to show up? My author event\u00a0Book Passage \u00a0would start soon, and there were dozens of\u00a0very empty chairs, waiting to be filled. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1439,633,1208,34,655,29,55,82,1440,1441],"class_list":["post-21585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-author-events","tag-book-passage","tag-cerridwen-fallingstar","tag-dont-miss","tag-friends","tag-jon","tag-family-stories","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-promotion","tag-wresting-with-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}