The answer is almost certainly 'Nothing whatsoever.'  Lorna Sage told me that she was always being asked the question by Creative Writing Students and she was always brutally honest. his morning`s Guardian has an anguished cry from their drama critic who has published her first novel, for 12/13 year olds. She has started a blog about it called IT`S ALL GONE QUIET and this is an extract.

 "It is two weeks since my first novel, Into the Woods (David Fickling Books) crept quietly out into the world to a resounding silence. There were no fireworks, no glittering launch party, and no column inches celebrating its arrival. It feels a bit like having been pregnant for a monstrously long time only to discover that nobody takes a blind bit of notice when the baby finally arrives."...

That is absolutely par for the course. First novels for adults are lucky if they get a review at all in the national press and then it is likely to be in a round-up shared with a dozen others. First novels for children will ONLY get the round=up and as national papers do not review children`s books very often, it could be months before even that happens.

Only a tiny percentage of authors get launch parties mainly because they are only given to get press attention and you only get that if you have celebs at your party, not family and friends. Parties cost money. I have never had and do not ever want a launch party. Pure waste of money.

Poor author. It was wrong of anyone if they led her to expect more but in fact I bet they didn`t. We all try to be as negative as possible to our authors so that they will not feel as let down as this writer clearly does and because if you expect less than nothing, the smallest good thing that happens will seem wonderful. 

Writing is about writing. It is about the pleasure and fulfillment of doing it. Next, it is about people out there, even if only a handful of people, reading your book and finding something in it - entertanment, enjoyment, deep meaning, whatever. You will probably never know that they have had this experience. You write your book and send it out into the world to seek its fortune ' Go little book..' And that`s it. The rest is froth. Well, and if you are lucky, some money. That is not froth, that is just living, same as if you were selling oranges. 

But meanwhile, there is a book.  It is called INTO THE WOODS. It has no voice of its own though it may sit on some bookshop shelves looking pretty. It cannot speak until it is opened and read and that is what it is waiting for.

At least go and have  a look and if you can`t find it, ask for it.. in a bookshop or even better, in a library. That is what the latter are supposed to be for, though sometimes you would never guess it.