I have my first author appearance in less than a week. I’ll be at the Baltimore Book Festival, doing a panel on ebooks and the changing nature of publishing, a book signing, and a reading. This is of course a dream come true, to be participating in a book festival as an author, but I’m getting more nervous as the days go by. I hate public speaking. You’d think reading from my own work would be easy (don’t I know all the words by heart now?), but the thought of standing up in front of a crowd give me cold chills. And I do hope there will be at least a small crowd. I’ve recruited a few warm bodies to attend my reading, and with any luck there will be some people I don’t know, maybe new Thief of Hope fans.

My first trial reading to my critique group didn’t go over well. I only got through a couple paragraphs before they made me stop and regroup and rethink my approach. Then we went around the table and everyone read the same paragraphs, much better than I did, I’ll admit. At least that helped me understand what I was doing wrong and gave me some direction. So now it’s practice practice practice. And remember to breathe. And try to look at the audience. And not mispronounce words. And…

Got any tips for a nervous new author? Aside from keeping a flask handy to calm my nerves.