When Having Flu Forces you to Organise a Book Launch, by Natasha Woodcraft

I despise February. Anyone with me? 

Every year in February, I spend most of the month ill. For the past week and a half, I've felt really rough and even had to have a 'stay in bed' day last Friday. 

Every year, my husband has a birthday that gets highjacked by us all being ill. The last birthday of his that we weren’t ill was 2020, a few weeks before lockdown, which happened to be his 40th and the last party we had before never having a party again (or at least, that’s what it felt like). 

I digress.

These days, with four children in three different schools who bring home every bug going, February is a write off.

But could it be a different kind of write off? 

Because the one good thing about being confined to bed for a few days is that you can’t do much else but write. Often it's sick days that have given me catch-up time for my writing, but last Friday, when I spent the day in bed (until I had to force myself out in the afternoon to do 3 school runs – thank goodness it’s half term this week), it forced me to do something I’d been moving to the bottom of my list for ages – plan my book launch. 

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com courtesy of pexels.com

My biggest novel yet (and I write big novels) is coming in April and I had done precious little to get ready. Everyone else’s stuff takes priority. 

Now, perhaps sitting in bed with half a brain functioning isn’t the best time to plan something rather significant, but it was the only time. I could pull the excuse of being too ill for normal work and just sit there with pen, paper and (later) laptop and chuck a load of ideas around. Did I get the whole thing planned out? Hmm, well, no. But I did get dates & tasks in a logical order, and I at least now I know roughly what I need to do, even if I haven’t done a bunch of it yet.

Photo by Ivan Samkov at pexels.com

I don’t like doing my launches alone. Each time I’ve released a novel, I’ve gathered a team around me to pray, to read early copies, to help share the word. My first step last week was to consider what team I needed and how to get them. I’m starting the team gathering process this Friday, now it’s all setup, but I didn’t even know what that process was before last Friday. My situation now is different from 2.5 years ago when I last did this, and it was never going to look the same. This had me flummoxed until I was forced to stop and pray. 

Because when planning book launches, as with every aspect of writing, I need to bring God into it. My tenancy is to knuckle down, write a huge long list and work through it all (very last minute) getting more & more stressed, only to realise if I’d just stopped, prayed and planned before starting on the list, I could have prioritised better, not wasted time on a load of rubbish ideas, and gotten some better ones. Because God usually has way better ideas than I do. Actually, he always has way better ideas than I do.

Thank goodness that February came along. Because it took a sick day to give me time to spend with God, a pen, a notebook and (later), a laptop. And if I hadn’t got sick, maybe I’d have missed the most important bit of that process. 

It’s a good job he didn’t let me. 

Natasha Woodcraft lives in a slightly crumbling farmhouse in Lincolnshire with her husband, four sons and a menagerie of animals. She believes stories have power to communicate deep truth and transform lives. Her novels explore God’s redemptive purposes for ordinary, messy people living in biblical times. Also a songwriter, Natasha peppers her emotional prose with poetry and song. 

P.S. I've learnt a lot of things from watching other people's book launches and being on their teams. If you're new to this gig and you'd like to join my team to watch (steal) my ideas, you would be more than welcome. We're all in this together! Here's the link to join: https://subscribepage.io/thewandererslegacy