[Mary Hoffman]

I'm not alone among writers in finding actual publication day often underwhelming. Some publishers send a card - occasionally flowers - but usually it's a big fat nothing so you feel let down.

Now the exciting times are
• Getting an idea accepted
• Hearing that your advance will be good and more than last time!
• Finishing the first draft
• Sending off the CD/e-mail/printout of your text
• Receiving a royalty cheque higher than you expected
• Getting a good review
• Hearing that your book has been shortlisted/longlisted for an award

And not least:
• Getting a piece of fan fiction that shows you have really reached a reader.

When the daughters were small we always had iced bun-round when a book was accepted (I realise this might sound VERY rude to American members but it is a kind of pastry with white icing on top arranged like a wheel of individual iced buns with a round one in the middle).

I stole this idea from The Railway Children by e.Nesbit where the writer mother gave her children iced buns when she got an acceptance letter from publishers.

But they became blase over time - or just grew up maybe - so we don't have that ritual now. They read the proof copies though and my husband has the first drafts read to him chapter by chapter, which is very fruistrating for him because he wants to know what happens next and I don't always know myself!

Yes of course it's still exciting when the finished copies come and I have to find room on the shelf for them. But more and more I just think that writing is what I do and having seen a fair bit of the publishing industry I don't find it glamorous.

Mary