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The Book Tour: visiting as many bookstores as your publisher can afford to send you to, or that you have the stamina to visit, and therein, at an appointed time, reading from your book and talking about it. Answering questions, should there be any, from your audience should there be any! This is part of the process here in the US, part of what authors of a new book are expected to do. You knew this, and now I do too, though it was new to me when my first novel was published here in 2008. Not that its unknown in Australia, but its certainly not as widespread. We do the Writers Festival thing (see blog #3) more.

The purpose of a bookstore reading? Twofold, I gather: first, that the audience will fall in love with your book and buy a copy, and then tell all their friends how fabulous it is and lots more people will buy copies and so Word of Mouth will work its magic and your book will become an adored bestseller. Second, that the staff of the bookstore will become more aware of your offering, among the torrent of books pouring weekly on to their shelves, and (pretty much as above) fall in love and hand sell it to lots of their loyal customers.

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So, where do I write? Wherever I happen to find myself! Adaptable, thats me with one proviso: I must, absolutely unequivocally must, have a view. Some writers can write facing a blank wall indeed, some even prefer to but not me. From my Manhattan window I could count sixteen watertanks atop the surrounding buildings; in Kirribilli, I watched the green and yellow ferries chug back and forth across Sydney Harbour; in Coorabell, I watched blue herons perform courting dances and crimson rosellas perch on the hibiscuses around the pool. Theres gotta be an upside to being homeless!

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The character of the fest varies from city to city: in Adelaide, for instance, the capital of South Australia, where the festival is held in open-sided marquees in the Botanical Gardens during summer, you will find anything up to 5000 people sitting in whatever shade they can find or manufacture, listening in rapt attention to their favourite authors, whether local or from overseas.  Melbourne's festival is held during winter, in a theatre complex converted from a former brewery. Coats and scarves abound, and the throng is dense.  In 2006, when my first novel had just been published in Australia, my younger brother and I had the great fun of interviewing each other on stage. Michael's first book had come out just a month before, you see - non-fiction, a book of interviews with men who flew during WW2 - and he is quite a famous TV actor there, so I was able to ride shamelessly on his coat-tails.  Or was that him riding on mine?  Anyway, we had a ball!  You can see a photo of us together, and read an interview, here.

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Facebook.  Oh dear, now I have to - really, really have to - ramp up my ‘online presence'.  I already have a Facebook page for me, but my book apparently needs one too.  Not to mention blogs (thank you, Penguin!) and Goodreads and Shelfari and ... and ... Go ahead, dear reader, tell me all the ones I don't know about, and should.  Must.  Will!

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Hey, everybody—thrilling news! Just a week ago, Australia got its first woman Prime Minister.  YES! (Air punch.)  Her name's Julia and she's smart and funny and her politics are great, and she's a redhead and she's not married but she lives with a guy called Tim who thinks she's terrific. I reckon Tim should be known as the First Bloke—what do you think?

And, in only slightly less world-shattering news, tomorrow my second novel, Trust, will be released here in the United States.  YES! (again).  You're excited for me, right?  Good, because I'm terrified. You see, in Australia, I got great reviews in every major newspaper in the country—here, check them out on my website—and you can tell just from the quotes that I'm not fibbing.  I also talked myself hoarse on radio interviews and at the Sydney Writers Festival. 

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Kate Veitch is one of our guest bloggers during the week of June 28th. If you have any questions for Kate Veitch, add a comment to any of her posts.

Here is more information on Trust:

An international bestselling novelist asks: What does it take to be a good woman-and what does it take from you?

Susanna Greenfield has given her all to being a good daughter, sister, wife, and mother. Somehow, she's maintained her profession as a college art teacher, as well as rearing two headstrong teenagers and nurturing a twenty-year marriage to Gerry, a confident, ambitious architect. She's also the eternal peacemaker between her pretty younger sister Angie, former junkie turned born-again Christian, and their strong- willed mother, Jean.

Just when Susanna is struggling to revive her creative career, a devastating accident rips apart the fabric of her world, exposing secrets which threaten to destroy both a marriage, and a life. Plumbing the rich emotional vocabulary of faith and betrayal, loyalty and forgiveness, Trust is the story of a woman's challenge to find her self.