My book launch
by Jennifer Bryce
For me, the most exciting part of publishing my book was to see it there, bound, in a cover — a real book, rather than a word file or a heap of pages spewing all over the floor from my printer.
But the next most exciting experience was last night, at Readings Bookshop, Carlton, where Toni Jordan launched it. Toni has a huge deadline to meet in a couple of weeks’ time, yet she had spent time thoroughly reading Lily Campbell’s Secret and looking back to her notes, to the time, in 2015, when I took her workshop, Refining Your Novel. I had naively thought that my carefully drafted novel was ready for refining! No way. It went through several iterations, but after the workshop with Toni it gained direction and purpose.
Toni Jordan launching Lily Campbell’s Secret
Barry Lee Thompson, from my writing group, Elwood Writers Elwoodwriters.com gave a generous talk about the development of my book from the perspective of the writing group. I expected that they might have thought it would never be finished — but he said I had persistence (like the main character, Lily).
Barry Lee Thompson of Elwood Writers
There was a huge gathering of about fifty people — wonderful to see so many friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen for many years. Tremendous to have that support. Angela Munro took a fine collection of photographs both at the launch and at the dinner afterwards at University Cafe.
Jennifer Bryce at her book launch
Thanks to everyone who came. And if you still want to buy a copy, if you live in Melbourne, it’s available from Readings Bookstores, Avenue Books, and some independent book shops such as Jeffrey’s in Malvern. Out of town it’s available from New Leaves (Woodend) and Aesop’s Attic (Kyneton) and The Trading Post (Mount Macedon) (the setting for much of the book). Otherwise, it can be obtained from Amazon: Click here to buy from Amazon, Click here to buy from the Amazon Kindle Store, Click here to buy from Apple iBooks. Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45275708-lily-campbell-s-secret?ac=1&from_search=true
or Book Depository https://www.bookdepository.com/Lily-Campbells-Secret-Jennifer-Bryce/9780994256645?ref=grid-view&qid=1560492949777&sr=1-1.
littlesmackerel 
Great launch, and dinner looks like fun too.
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Yes Margaret — a wonderful variety of people and a happy time …
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It was a really enjoyable night, and so well attended, Jenny. This is a good report, and I like Angela’s pics. It’s a good job I kept my coat on, otherwise I’d have merged with the spines of the books behind me!
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Reblogged this on Elwood Writers and commented:
Elwood Writers’ Jennifer Bryce celebrated the official launch of her novel “Lily Campbell’s Secret” at Readings Books in Carlton earlier this week. Here’s her report on the event, from her website:
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It was a terrific launch party and Toni and Barry spoke so eloquently Jenny – as did you! What a great night. So many congratulations on the launch of ‘Lily’!
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Yes thanks Helen, the Launch went even better than I’d hoped … There have been quite a few encouraging comments — now we just have to encourage lots of people to buy the book!
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