Launching Anna

I am not throwing away my shot!  Watch out, Lin-Manuel Miranda, it's my Hamilton moment!

photo by Marty Woess, Sharp Teeth Photography 

This past Thursday night, I had my first ever book launch event, for my first ever novel, Courting Anna.  It was a wonderful experience!

Although the novel came out at the end of July, there were a number of reasons to delay the event.  First, I live in New York City, and everyone who possibly can, spends as little time as possible here in August.   Second, I had an amazing venue, an early-19^th century NeoGothic church . . . but the place isn’t air conditioned and here we circle back to the issues with NYC in August, aka potential heatwaves in the concrete jungle.  Third and most important, I needed to find a date when both the church and my “in conversation” partner, gaslamp fantasy novelist 

Leanna Renee Hieber, were available. 

photo by Marty Woess, Sharp Teeth Photography

We got the word out via social media and local press (when the New York Times is your local paper, that means neighborhood press instead!), but though we had a good crowd, in the end it was all friends turning out to support me.  Still, that turned any potential jitters into a very comfortable situation, as Leanna asked me questions and we talked about my book, her books, our writing process, and our beloved 19^th century.  We each did a brief reading (me from Courting Anna and Leanna from her most recent, The Spectral City) and then took questions, which led to a really interesting back-and-forth with the audience.  And then we adjourned for snacks and chat, and of course book signings!

I’m pleased to say that I sold completely out of my author’s copies, while some of the folks who already had the book brought them to be signed.  Courting Anna bookmarks were also popular, and meant that friends who'd bought the ebook version could still take away a signed memento.

My first signing!  Photo by author friend Joseph R. Kennedy

The site, St. Peter’s Chelsea, an Episcopal Church which was built on land donated by Clement Clarke Moore (you might know a little something he wrote that begins with “’Twas the night before Christmas . . . “), was the perfect venue.  It’s a stunning building, one of the first NeoGothic structures in North America, consecrated in 1838, and has quite a storied history.  It was an especially wonderful venue to appear with Leanna, who is also an actress (Boardwalk Empire, among other things) and a licensed ghost tour guide, and who does her author appearances in Victorian mourning dress.

Everyone – especially the friend from college days who came all the way from Philadelphia to attend! – contributed so much, but I wanted to end with a special shoutout to some of the authors who turned out.  Mary Sheeran is the author of three novels and will be making her Prairie Rose debut this winter.  Kris Waldherr’s Victorian gothic The Lost History of Dreams is not to be missed.  Sarah-Jane McKenna’s cozy mystery series is off to a great start!     

Especial thanks to Leanna Renee Hieber -- check out https://www.leannareneehieber.com/ -- and St. Peter's Chelsea for working with me to make this happen!

Photo by Beyond My Ken - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12221736

Courting Anna is available on Amazon:  amzn.to/2Zn7Iyo

Connect with Cate Simon:

Website & Blog: https://www.catesimon.com/

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p.s.  Just in case you're less fascinated than I am by Broadway historical rap musicals that I can't actually afford tickets to go and see, this is what my husband and I immediately thought of when we were going through the pictures from that evening and saw that first one: