A Launching, A Book
I've been hunkered down for the past few days, trying to create a pair of stories to submit here and here by the 31st of March, so I haven't had time to post anything personal about book launch of A Time for Dragons (although I managed to get an event post up for Bahay Talinhaga). I thought I'd do a more personal sharing about the launch, and show a few pics of the book itself.
The launch was tons of fun - as andrewdrilon said, my family turned out in force (and dominated the raffle, much to my chagrin :P) which was very gratifying for me. The fact that I write isn't - well, wasn't - very well known amongst my family, even though I have an aunt and uncle who are big-name writers in their respective fields. (I actually think I did the book's publisher a favor by inviting them - I think some book deals might have been sealed there @_@) My wife and my mom have been very supportive of a move that miiight not be the smartest economically, and for that I'm very thankful.
I wish I'd had more time to hang out with the other authors, and maybe get to know them a bit more. I'm not very comfortable with people - although I've learned to fake it very well - but even if I find it hard to engage in small talk, the fact that the other authors and I seemed to share a lot of overlapping interests made things fun and relatively easy. (Although as I told ekmisao no one's recognized my drill-bit yet @_@) Hopefully there will be other opportunities in the future to know them as something more than fellow contributors... I was still a bit hesitant to approach those I didn't know (good thing I was seated next to Elyss whom I'd met several times before) but at least I was able to get most of them to do a "special" dedication on my book - the writers drew and the artist wrote (though Andrew is a great writer so it wasn't exactly sporting).
As for the book itself, I already knew I loved the art and design, but I didn't expect them to go and emboss (I think that's the term) the title and the logos. The paper quality and the font/type setting are stellar as well. I suppose those production values are what make the book a smidgen pricier than I expected but my wife tells me that she heard they might release a version using cheaper paper for the more budget conscious (I just hope that they distinguish [tastefully] the versions somehow - not everyone is going to assume that there are multiple versions/price points of a book when all the covers look the same)
It's definitely a thrill to see my name in a book though, similar to how it felt the first time I saw my name in print beneath my story's title. I honestly doubt that ever gets old. ^_^
Next time I'll post a bit about how it felt to write up two stories in roughly two and a half days :P.
The launch was tons of fun - as andrewdrilon said, my family turned out in force (and dominated the raffle, much to my chagrin :P) which was very gratifying for me. The fact that I write isn't - well, wasn't - very well known amongst my family, even though I have an aunt and uncle who are big-name writers in their respective fields. (I actually think I did the book's publisher a favor by inviting them - I think some book deals might have been sealed there @_@) My wife and my mom have been very supportive of a move that miiight not be the smartest economically, and for that I'm very thankful.
I wish I'd had more time to hang out with the other authors, and maybe get to know them a bit more. I'm not very comfortable with people - although I've learned to fake it very well - but even if I find it hard to engage in small talk, the fact that the other authors and I seemed to share a lot of overlapping interests made things fun and relatively easy. (Although as I told ekmisao no one's recognized my drill-bit yet @_@) Hopefully there will be other opportunities in the future to know them as something more than fellow contributors... I was still a bit hesitant to approach those I didn't know (good thing I was seated next to Elyss whom I'd met several times before) but at least I was able to get most of them to do a "special" dedication on my book - the writers drew and the artist wrote (though Andrew is a great writer so it wasn't exactly sporting).
As for the book itself, I already knew I loved the art and design, but I didn't expect them to go and emboss (I think that's the term) the title and the logos. The paper quality and the font/type setting are stellar as well. I suppose those production values are what make the book a smidgen pricier than I expected but my wife tells me that she heard they might release a version using cheaper paper for the more budget conscious (I just hope that they distinguish [tastefully] the versions somehow - not everyone is going to assume that there are multiple versions/price points of a book when all the covers look the same)
It's definitely a thrill to see my name in a book though, similar to how it felt the first time I saw my name in print beneath my story's title. I honestly doubt that ever gets old. ^_^
Next time I'll post a bit about how it felt to write up two stories in roughly two and a half days :P.