This is a pre-emptive rant, and something that has bugged me for a while. Anyone who is launching a book at Swancon, please go heavy on the buy-it-because-it-is-good angle and soft on the buy-it-to-support-a-small-press-angle. 

If you're launching a book of short stories tell me why these are stories I must read. Tell me which of the stories is the best urban fantasy I'll read this year. Tell me which of the authors is the new Jeffd Ford or Elizabeth Hand or Margo Lanagan. Tell me which bright new artist has set the pages alight with their internal art. Tell me... okay, you get the picture.

Don't try to guilt $25 out of me as a purchase-as-charity sale to support a small press. Yes the publisher has put lots of effort into the book and will almost certainly make a loss on the publication. But don't say you're going to bar the doors until everyone buys a book because the small press publisher deserves our support.  Small publishers deserve and get our support because they publish shit-hot stories. If you don't at least try to sell me on buying the book because of its quality then you're not doing you're job and you don't deserve a sale.

I have been to too many launches where the only call to action is "buy the book so you can support the publisher's hard work and they can do more publications."

Harper Collins won't be telling me to buy the books at their launch because Rupert Murdoch needs the money. They'll be telling me to buy the book/s because if I don't I'll be missing the hottest YA fantasy of the year or the best science fiction debut since Mary Doria Russell.

Also, I'm surprised to see one launch being promoted as a mystery, where we have to keep an eye out for clues as to when/where it will be.  Sometimes there are reasons these things aren't known a week out from the con. Often they're out of the control of the publisher. It happens. But if that's the case tell us and let us know when we can find out. Otherwise it's just as likely we won't come because we won't know when the bloody launch is on! As Kate would say on Electric Alphabet, it's not good 'platform.'