Last night was the ‘official’ launch of my book, Slender Threads, and a jolly fine evening it was too.
In Macawberish terms, it ought to have been miserable, but to see a roomful of people most of whom are connected only by me (or think they are, as it turned out), is fascinating. And yet, several of the guests met me for the first time on the night. It’s interesting to note how people still make a differentiation between the internet and the ‘real’ world, but there were at least four guests who I knew purely from the virtual world. Meeting with the twitterati can be awkward if, like me, you have an avatar rather than a photograph, but it’s testament to the power of twitter, and of our own powers of discernment, that we can glean enough to know that we wish to bother. In fact, if you count the people I met online in one way or another, it starts to get rather interesting.
It was a varied bunch, including authors, agents, union men, retired anaesthetists, sub-editors, radio journalists, film makers, musicians, academics, intellectual property lawyers, accountants, compliance specialists, cricketers, even a freelance expert in fungi, edible or otherwise. And that’s ignoring those who couldn’t make it or I forgot to invite.
Yes, a book launch is a little like a wedding, and yes, no-one actually wants to hear the author thank his agent, the goddess of online publishing, or his cat, before launching into an interminable reading of a book everyone’s either already got or will buy on the night anyway … but tweet it, and they will come. And they will connect.
And connect they did. E. M. Forster had it right all along, it seems. Well, apart from the only bit. Eat, drink and connect.
Thank you all for making it such a splendid evening.

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