Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

Now I have a cover and a release date (10 Jan 2013) I can plan what promotion (mostly celebration) is going to happen. Today the lovely Nicole Murphy (http://nicolermurphy.com/) came over to do some Conflux organising and launch party brain storming.

For those of you who don’t know, Nicole and I are running the National Science Fiction Convention next year in Canberra over the Anzac Day period. Today we were scheduling the 20 diverse workshops we will be running as part of the convention. We are very excited about it. After we had settled that, we got down to brainstorming my launch party.

The launch party planning became a big thing. Here I was thinking I would have a themed party with people dressing up as space pirates or slaves. You can tell from the title there are space pirates and there is also a Centauri Slave Market featured. The lovely Matthew Farrer (http://matterfarrer.wordpress.com/)  also piped in with his ideas and now I’m doing a ‘Welcome to AllEarth Corp induction pack’ including a few novelties I will have to create or supply. (this means I have some work to do). We discussed props/house decorating stuff, food (including meatball asteroids and chocolate crackle asteroids), a purple coloured punch served out of haz chem bucket (Matt’s brilliant idea). I was thinking it would be a punch bowl and have been told a bucket with a haz chem symbol is what I need. There is going to be a lucky door prize, a pass the parcel prize, a trailer viewing, a reading (apparently I can’t outsource that part).

Because I have no physical book to display, I’ve been thinking hard about what I can do to let people take away something. My idea was a book mark thingy, with space on the back for an autograph. So I have that ball rolling. I’m just hoping Nicole doesn’t tell me my design is sucky, because it’s TOO LATE , Nicole! Also, as Conflux is coming up, the bookmarks can go into conbags. I’m sure I’ll get a discount, Hey Nicole? I’ll possibly have enough for another convention I’m going to in June.

While I was at the supermarket after Nicole went home, I also had the idea to make a cake in the shape of a space ship, my version of a space ship. So that’s all happening on the 19th of January and now I have to put my thinking cap on about the invites. As the launch party is at my house I have limited space. As it is in January a lot of people will be away so maybe it will work out.

I’ve already been on http://www.thinkgeek.com to get a few things I’ll need. The trouble with to do lists is that they give you things to do.

Also, promoting your work in this digital age is a new and exciting frontier. Will it work? I have no idea.