So with my own debut rapidly approaching, this would be a good moment to mention the world's first recorded book launch.
It happened at the Olympics, and the author was none other than Herodotus, who in addition to founding both history and anthropology, seems also to have invented book marketing.
This from the later writer Lucian, who said of Herodotus:
There is one thing--the use he made of his writings, and the speed with which he attained the respect of all Greece; from that you, or I, or any one else, might take a hint....The great Olympic Games were at hand...Herodotus appeared in the hall of the Temple of Zeus, bent not on sight-seeing, but on bidding for an Olympic victory of his own; he recited his Histories, and bewitched his hearers.He was straightway known to all, better far than the Olympic winners. There was no man who had not heard his name; they had listened to him at Olympia, or they were told of him by those who had been there; he had only to appear, and fingers were pointing at him: 'There is the great Herodotus, who wrote the Persian War in Ionic, and celebrated our victories.'
After that one event, to read your book at the Temple of Zeus during the Olympics became the ancient world's equivalent of being on Oprah.