My hometown book launch for Girl Running was last weekend, and I thought I’d share some thoughts aout how to plan a book party.

First, invite people! I set aside one afternoon the week before the party to hand-deliver invitations to friends and neighbors with kids. I reminded my critique group knew about the party via social media. And I gave our local independent bookstore invitations that they placed with their other freebies.

Second, don’t fret about circumstances beyond your control. I woke up to a blizzard the morning of the book party. Unsurprisingly, it stopped some people from getting there, but lots of people still schlepped out in the bad weather. The bookstore owner had to keep setting up more chairs, in fact!

Third, read your book, or from your book. Girl Running is the perfect length for a full reading, and I brought visual aids and included some audience participation moments, too. My bookstore had set up a screen so I could project PDFs of all the illustrations from the book so that everyone could see.

Fourth, share details about the process of thinking up, writing, or promoting the book. For this book, I used lots of local girls in the book trailers I made, so I sent them all special email invitations and compiled a compilation video of all the book trailers (you can find it here on my YouTube channel). Several of the girls came to the book party.  I talked about how meaningful it had been to me to see the legacy of Bobbi Gibb in these girls and their attitude toward running and life. It was really moving to show the video with the girls there in the audience, and I know from their comments that the adults in the audience were impressed and inspired by these girls’ wisdom and by how much things have changed in our lifetimes.

Fifth, feed people! I was going to make cookies like my friend Alison Goldberg did, but I was pretty sure mine would not be nearly as cute, so I bought runner’s food instead: granola bars.

Finally, let kids and grown-ups, inspired by your beautiful book, create too. I had coloring pages and crayons, but the big hit was Washi tape. The outlines of running shoes on the coloring pages were all completely obliterated in a wild, joyous riot of Washi tape patterns. Because who needs crayons when you have Washi tape? It ended up being an economical craft, because, despite the exuberant Washi taping, the kids didn’t use up any of the rolls. So now I can plan another event with Washi tape, too!

I feel very, very lucky to live in a small town that still manages to support our excellent independent bookstore, BookPeople of Moscow, and feel very grateful to Carol Price, the bookstore owner who always supports me in my crazy book promotion plans.

Happy partying!