Notes from Thursday

Notes from Thursday –

Fabulous day of information and meeting people.  And a great start to conference!

Started the day with the PRO workshop.  I was a bit late getting there (it’s nice my customers need me, but it would be nicer to have a true vacation without having to squeeze in an hour or two of work in the morning first!) but walked in to workshop by agent Meg Ruley, who reps for Jenny Cruise.  She offered some tips – network!  Make friends with booksellers.  Find the young, hungry staff at the agencies.  To find an editor you think will love your work, find the authors YOU love, then find out who reps them.

Next we were treated to a great panel with Jenny Cruise, Bob Mayer, and Molly who runs their website.  They gave some good info on why having a great website is so important.  Jenny talked about how, just as your agent presents you to your editor, your website presents you to the world.

Bob talked about blogging, and how to have a blog people will actually want to read.

And then Molly got into some specifics about what you’re looking to have for your website.  And how much a professionally designed one costs.  $1500 – $5000 is “reasonable”.  Ouch!

A great Editor panel was next.  Tracy Farrell from Harlequin, Cindy Hwang from Berkley, and Raeline Gorlinsky form Ellora’s Cave talked about some trends in the industry, and what they’re seeing and looking for.

-Tracy Farrell said mass market sales are weak.  This was the first of many industry people I’ve heard give this same quote.  She said the Romance industry overall is still strong – “Romance is a strong part of a challenging (and challenged) business.”  Harlequin is looking more at epubs and other alternative pub’d authors, and looking at more diverse subgenres.  Not just paranormal, but paranormal with a twist, for example.  And Tracy is evidently not personally a vampire fan

-Cindy Hwang talked more on the theme of Romance being strong, but publishers facing challenges.  She personally judges lots of contests, and has found several new authors that way.  She’s looking for “complex characters and delicious heroes”.   And she talked about prolific and disciplined authors, as did Tracy.

-Raelene talked mostly about looking for fresh subgenres at Ellora’s Cave.  Editors are tired of seeing the next LKH or Feehan clone.  They’ve seen great sales from male/male romances in the last 6 months at EC – and women are the ones buying them.  To get the attention of an editor, you need to really push the genre envelopes.

And then the highlight of the morning – Nora Roberts came in to deliver the Keynote.  After a slight delay while the Marriott tried to move us to another room (how rude!), we were treated to a fabulously inspirational talk on the Magic of writing.  And the hard work that it takes to keep that magic working.  Nora is as great a speaker as she is a writer; it was wonderful to hear her speak.

Then it was off to lunch, and a lunch keynote that had me all but falling out of my chair laughing.  Meg Cabot was hysterically funny as she talked about her path to publication, and the stories behind getting her book turned into the Disney movie “The Princess Diaries”.  I’ve never read her before, but after hearing her speak I can’t wait to dig into the two books we got at the luncheon and see if she’s as funny in print as she is in person.  Her talk made an otherwise bland lunch worth sitting through.  (Since my last meal had been the Ruth’s Chris dinner, maybe it’s not fair to call the Marriott food bland… but really, there’s only so much you can do with chicken served over grits.)

The RWA Annual Meeting was after lunch.  I was truly shocked at the low turnout.  There are over 2000 writers in Atlanta, and less than 10 percent went to the meeting.  They missed out on a heartwarming, sincere moment as Gayle Wilson thanked her board for all their help the past year, and spoke about some of the “Wow!” moments of her year as president.  She is such a sweet, sincere, and gracious person.  RWA has been served very well this past year by having her lead us, and I’m sure she’ll continue to be an important part of directing RWA in the years to come.

Thursday night I had two parties to go to.  I started at the RWA Online party – the party for the online chapter I’ve only been a member of for a few months.  Some fantastic people there, and I was sad to leave after only an hour.  But I was already late at that point for the Romance Diva’s dinner at Azio’s.  The Diva’s had 2 very large tables in the corner, and I squeezed myself in at the head of the table where I could take some great pictures.  Then forgot to take hardly any.  (There are a few up over at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ksteele2/ )  We ate and talked and laughed for hours, then headed over to a bar at the Marriott to do more of the talking thing.  And then a lot of the dancing thing.  I’m trying not to post anything to incriminating, but a VERY good time was had by all.  Maybe the movies will make it up someday – but I think I better get a waiver signed first….

I headed off to bed at the early hour of just after midnight.  Friday is a big day, including my editor pitch.  Don’t want to show up for that with eyebags and a hangover!