“I took hold of that scourge -filled ship and crushed it between my limbs, hurtling it into the second sun, the red one that gave me strength. But I was too late." Terraformer
For those of you who are curious as to what I do to prep for a launch party, I decided to show you through pictures.
Usually, the first thing that happens is I get my author copies of the book in the mail. The paperback of Recreated was released around the same time as the hardbacks of Reunited.
Next up, I get my nails done. I like them to look nice for a book event so I do a plain French manicure on my hands and then try to match my feet to the book cover.
For the Reawakened series, I’ve dressed up for each book, buying a dress that matched the cover. Here they all are with their corresponding books. I didn’t do a launch party for Reignited so I don’t have a dress for that one but I probably would have chosen the one below. I really like that the orange dress since it looks like it has wings.
Once my jewelry and dress is picked out, I focus on hair, I mean I do have an idea but nit yet, I just have a sagittarius necklace for it. For this book launch I decided to go long. My hair is currently four different colors and it was hard to find extensions that matched, so we bought two sets and my mom sewed the dark color into the multi-colored extensions and then we supplemented with purple.
I also get my makeup done for each book event. My makeup girl is named Madeline. She’s super cute and really good at her job. She’s been with me since Tiger’s Curse. I’m using these butterfly wing hot pink and purple striped eyelashes for this event. You can see the extensions on the back of the table.
Next up is planning the giveaways. In addition to copies of Reignited and Tiger’s Promise, we put together some purple themed gift bags with tee shirts, purses, makeup, candy, purple popcorn, cute purple travel sewing kits, lotion, basically anything we could find that was purple.
When we got to Powell’s, I headed to the back of the store to get changed since I live an hour away and began signing all the preorders. You can really get a good idea of what my hair looked like in this shot. Also the lashes. Woah.
An extra giveaway we did this time was something my mom came up with. She has developed a love of patches and making her own fandom jean jackets. She made one for the Reawakened series and showed it off at the event. Since it was the same price to print five custom book patches as it was to print fifty, we gave away a dozen or so packets. I had no idea there were so many crafters out there! Out of the sixty attendees, probably fifty raised their hands wanting a packet.
We are planning to give out some more at the Tiger’s Dream launch including Tiger series patches so you don’t want to miss out on that launch party!
First up was a Q & A. I got a lot of my standard questions, including the oft asked, “When is the movie coming?” and “What about Tiger’s Dream?” The Q & A lasted about twenty minutes or so, then it was on to giveaways, the book signing, and pictures. The fan who won the prize for coming the furthest distance was from Eugene, Oregon, about a two hour drive.
Afterwards, we finished the evening as we often do at Olive Garden. Can’t wait to launch Tiger’s Dream! As soon as we narrow down a publication date, I’ll announce it. Also excited to announce my next book with Delacorte which will debut in the fall of 2018. The announcement will be during the YA Scavenger Hunt this October!
This entry was posted in Fans, Reunited.
New York Times Bestselling author Colleen Houck is a lifelong reader whose literary interests include action, adventure, paranormal, science fiction, and romance. When she's not busy writing, she likes to spend time chatting on the phone with one of her six siblings, watching plays, and shopping online. Colleen has lived in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, California, and North Carolina and is now permanently settled in Salem, Oregon with her husband and a huge assortment of plush tigers.