“Have you considered doing an online book party?” Leslie
Whitaker asked me on facebook. I had, but I didn’t know what to do with one.
“Come join some of mine, then you can see what it’s all about! I can even host
it for you if you like.”
How could I refuse such a wonderful offer! Leslie even
arranged some little giveaways for the party, because she is fantastic.
Of course, being the nut that I am, I took it all way to
serious. I hung out at a couple of parties, and realized that –if done right-
these felt like ‘actual’ parties… only online. I’m a big fan of parties, so
‘WIN’!
It got me thinking, that if I wanted to host one of these
parties, I wanted to make it all about Coyote. I took notes at the other
parties, looked at the games we played and the things that were discussed.
Another thing I did was look online how book parties were supposed to work, but
to be honest, I found more about the benefits about them, rather than how to
host a good one.
On my notepad I had games scribbled like “Caption this”, but
I wanted more than that. After a little surfing around I came across a few
others that would be suitable as timeline games. Instead of taking them from
the pages, I decided to make them myself. I hoped that it would add to the
theme of the novel.
It was quite a bit of work, I have to admit. And the last
day was a little stressed, but I felt very happy with the end results. I drew
four ‘caption this’ games, and used three of my old drawings for ‘spot the
difference’ games. The rest of the games were just written.
The games were only part of the party, in order to do a
promotion party, we also needed to have some prizes. The main prize was easy:
get a copy of the book. I had this idea of doing t-shirts. It took a while to
convince Daan. I have a beautiful cover, but somehow it just didn’t feel right
just to put a cover on the t-shirt, I wanted it to appeal to none readers too.
So we used one of my silhouette drawings instead and put it on a black t-shirt.
Daan pointed out that
After a lot of banter and quoting famous cowboys, I actually
came up with something we all (I involved Apple in the conversation by now)
agreed on: “Hot Shot”.
The t-shirt design is pretty awesome if I do say so myself.
And so another prize was born.
Leslie suggested that I would give away some prints of my
work. That felt very weird, because I don’t consider myself a ‘real artist’,
but a hobbyist. It felt silly to consider my work as a prize. But Daan and
Apple responded positive to this, so I decided… what the heck?
Together with Leslies lovely accessories, we had quite a few
prizes to give away.
On the day of the party, we were really busy trying to set
everything up. The last games needed finishing and I was trying to get some
more people to attend. I decided I wanted to make a video too, to welcome the
people personally. Taping your own face is awkward at best, if you ask me, and
I felt a little loopy. The guests were really positive about it (though it
could just be that they were humoring me *grin*). If you want to see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xreQxmu1odo&feature=youtu.be
(the sound got a little messed up when Daan made it sepia, so it’s very soft) I
look like a bit of a lemon, and the hat on my head is a bowler… which is not
very clear (there went my cool theme)
The fun started at least an hour and a half before the party
started. People were popping in and saying hello. Bringing virtual drinks and
having a little bit of chit chat. I was still frantically working on the
last
games, to catch much of it. 
At 18:00 local time, some of my friends came over, for
support. We quickly ordered a pizza, and
I was in ‘chaotic Chanti mode’, which is funny to watch, less funny to be
*grin*.
At 19:00 the party was already ‘packed’ and we each took
place behind an internet device (it was hilarious, I was on the computer. Daan
was on the laptop. My friend Arjan used the ipod, and my friend Stefana was on
her cellphone, all at the same event.
Leslie, our main hostess, was brilliant. She played the
games and monitored them, I was too busy to try and figure out what is
happening. In our house, you could hear the crickets chirp… that’s how quiet we
were; we all were completely focused on the event. Afterwards we joked about
how we all sat and stared at a screen. The crazy thing was; we felt really involved
and active. It was difficult to keep up with everything that was going on (but
I really tried)
I loved seeing the reactions to my game, and I loved how
people came up with the funniest things for the ‘caption this’ games. It was a
blast.
In the end we had 120 guest, though I have no idea how many
of them were truly active. Some people popped in and out, and we probably had
some people that kept quiet too, and just watched.
It was a lot of fun to do. I really hope the people really
enjoyed themselves. I know I did. I liked giving away things too, that felt
nice.
Now the next day, I feel drained, as if I had a ‘real’ party
all night. This was quite intense, but such a great laugh! I would definitely
do it again!
