Born on the Border Launch Party Reflections

July 11th - Last night exceeded any expectations I had when planning my debut book launch party.

We reached the capacity at the venue within the first 15 minutes of the event.

We sold out of books in the first 20 minutes.

This was my first event for my first ever published book.

My original plan for the event was for it to be a casual dance party where I talked about the book for 10 minutes as an introduction.

I figured then we could dance and eat candy and I’d float around talking to folks. The venue began to pile up even before the 7 o’clock start time.

The staff quickly helped me to get more chairs out for people in the area I originally intended to be a dance area.

I spoke to my family to quickly replan what the night would be. They suggested a Q&A session. I was not prepared for one. I had never practiced for one.

I thought I would get 3 or 4 questions and we would listen to latino music the rest of the night. The Q&A session ended up being over an hour long.

Thank you everyone so much for showing up. Thank you to everyone who stood for an hour just to listen to me speak about my book. Thank you to everyone who came back to the venue hours after being turned away at the door because of the max capacity.

Thank you to everyone who bought a book. Thank you to everybody who asked a thoughtful question. Thank you to everyone who squeezed into the business lot next door just to hear what I had to say. Thank you to everyone who waited in line after the Q&A to speak to me and take a picture with me.

Thank you to the staff at The Wild Detectives for being so generous and attentive during the event. Thank you for planning ahead of time with staff and a second bar setup for the attendees.

Thank you to Somos Tejas for being there to speak to attendees about your work in the Latino community.

Thank you to Tumbleweed Texstyles for being the first company to believe in me when I had nothing to indicate the event would be a success months ago. Thank you for providing a gift card to raffle for the event.

Thank you to my friends and family for being there to help me set up and pack up the event. I needed y’all to lean on and support me especially when reshaping what the night would look like in real time.

Thank you to my boyfriend for managing the book sales and improvising with payment methods. Thank you for never letting me sit in doubt over the impact this book would make. Thank you for encouraging me every step of the way.

I am still in awe of how the Dallas community showed up for me. I cannot say how much it meant to look at a crowd of people just waiting to hear my message. The turn out just goes to show how excited people are to receive representation and hear real stories from people.

This is only the beginning. Thanks y’all so much for showing out. I look forward to more events and more opportunities to discuss how we all can represent our communities.

The Wild Detectives Book Launch Party