Dinner with authors.

Continuing my recounts of the Book 'Em NC event, today I want to talk about the Author Meet-n-Greet from the night before the big event.

Let me first go into my expectations.

This was my first big conference, out of state, and I wondered if I'd have to deal with the shunning that comes with being an Independent Author. I was really dreading the first time the question about my publisher was asked. Now don't get me wrong, I've met sooooo many authors online, both indies like myself and the traditionally published ones. Ninety-nine percent of them are the kindness people you'll ever meet. Yet there's still that one percent that will look down on anyone who didn't publish in the same manner they have.

With my worries settled into the pit of my stomach, and the excitement of just being there set my nerve endings twittering, I walked into the banquet room. It only took a moment to spot one of the ladies I had been talking to online. With an excited greeting and a big hug, all that anxiety melted away. Soon I was meeting new people, all as friendly as ever. With Tim to my right, the round table we'd chosen to sit at filled in with other authors & their guests.

It took another half an hour before that most dreaded question was asked.

In line at the buffet, the author in front of me asked, "And who are you published through?" Eek! I thought my brain would explode. "I'm an independent," I replied, holding my breath.

But. . . my brain didn't explode. I wasn't looked at like I'd lost my mind. She asked how sales were, if I enjoyed it, who my printer was, and then she mentioned a friend of hers interested in the process and promised to send him to my table the next day.

YAY!!!

Throughout the weekend I answered this question a total of four times, and each time I responded the same, receiving almost identical polite responses. After being in this business as an independent author for almost 7 years, I am so happy to see that the tide is turning when it comes to the ridicule. Most readers don't care who handled the printing and distribution of a book, just so long as the book provides a good story to entertain them. And now I'm happy to see that most authors don't care either!

With the shift in publishing toward the independent side, and many traditionally published authors taking things on for themselves, I hope the question of publishers continues to dwindle in the future. No author should have to feel that ball in the pit of their stomachs over the idea of being put down for their publishing choices.

And as I told the first author to ask, I love every minute of being an independent. I have never regretted my decision to take this route and each day brings a renewed happiness of choice. Choice over deadlines, choice over cover designs, and choice over presentation of a story you've worked so hard to produce.

But I digress... I haven't gotten off the topic of dinner here.

The dinner was held at Village Station 1893 Restaurant, with the owner Arnold West greeting each author like a new best friend. The food was delicious, the staff friendly, and the conversations lively with a room full of writers. It was so much fun being in a room of people with similar interests. We talked about books, e-books, Kindles, what genre we write in, where everyone was from, introduced our spouses/guests, and discussed our children (or lack thereof). All the normal stuff. It was great fun!

At the end of the night, we had all made some new friends to talk to the next day, and hopefully long into the future. I've already friended several online since returning home and others have friended me.

As a side note story, one lady really tickled me at the dinner. She was handing out her card to everyone and came to our table. I was talking to the author on my left when this lady came up to Tim and asked, "Are you the writer, or just the husband?" Tim replied, "I'm just the husband." We laughed for days about that. I said, "You're not JUST the husband, you're also the chauffeur!" LOL.

Stop by tomorrow when I share links to some of the authors I enjoyed speaking with at the conference. They were all great people. :)

Dönence coming soon!

Monday morning I woke to an e-mail from my Turkish editor from ARVO Publishing. She let me know that A Birth at Dawn (Alex & Fiona, book 2) had completed translation and was currently in edits. In Turkey, it will be called Dönence, which means: A circle of life.

She also included the cover for me. As you can see, it's a lovely cover. However, my name is misspelled. Oops! It'll be okay though. They'll get it fixed like last time. It is funny though. Last time my last name was misspelled and this time it's my first name. Oh well, it'll probably be another month before it's released anyway, and I have no doubt it'll be fixed very soon. :)

In the meantime, while we're waiting for the big Dönence release day in Turkey, I finally have links to where people can purchase Book 1, Balans.

Idefix ~ Kitapyurdu ~ Dunya Kitap ~ Okuoku

These are the links Hulya (Turkish editor) sent me to share with everyone. Soooo, if you're a Turkish speaker/reader and would like to jump into the world of Alex & Fiona with book 1, here's your chance. :)

InkPop and Teen Writers

I don't normally advertise for other companies, but I was contacted by an employee of Harper Collins wanting me to check out the site called InkPop.com and possibly mention something about it here on the blog. Even that isn't usually a good enough reason for me to share stuff I don't use or like

However... this site is very cool for the teen writer! InkPop focuses mainly on YA and teen writers, and as I don't write YA and certainly not a teen writer any longer, I had my teenager check it out as well. She's 14 (almost 15, she says) and loves reading and writing. Her words were, "It's cool, Mom. I like it and will definitely use it."

From what she told me, the only thing she didn't like is how difficult they have the password section of registration. It has a specific requirement on how your password should be. Something like 6 letters, 1 has to be a number and 1 has to be capitalized... or some such nonsense. She made it through though and moved on into using the site.

Anyway, the site seems to appeal to teens with ways to earn "badges" during your time there by doing things like writing short stories, writing poetry, helping out with critiques, writing fiction and even just trying out everything once. There are 25 badges in total, so there's plenty for the aspiring teen writer to try their hand at.

If you have a teen that enjoys writing, send them this way. They'll find lots of other people who enjoy the same things they do and possibly lead the way to a lifelong enjoyment of the written word. As an author, I like to encourage others to give it a try. I know my teen is.

Alex & Fiona Forever

As is common knowledge amongst my readers, I'm working on book 3 of the Liz Baker series. Liz is getting busy down in Savannah for right now. However, I'm also working on another project: a re-release of all three Alex & Fiona books in one hardcover edition.

Yep, all three Alex & Fiona stories in one easy-to-carry hardcover book. With the Turkish translations moving right along for these three books I thought it would be something nice to do for the English readers that have enjoyed these two characters for many years now.

We're working on formatting right now, and then I'll see if my lovely cover designer has anything up her sleeve that will do justice to the three covers we already have (I love those covers!). I'm looking forward to holding these three stories in one hardcover copy. It'll be a big one, but should be cheaper to purchase like this than in the three separate books.

This new edition *should* be available in the next month, or so. I will, of course, let everyone know when the time comes.

Now I should go get some family stuff done and then start my writing for the day. I hope you have a lovely Wednesday.  :)

Snow again? Really?

Why must Mother Nature torture me so?  Why is there all this white stuff covering the ground, vehicles, porch?  This is nonsense!  Ugh!

Here in north Georgia we somehow accomplished a snow accumulation of around 2-3 inches (just going by what's on my front porch).  I don't know why, but I do know that I don't like it one little bit.  "I have plans," she screams skyward.  "I don't want anymore winter!"

Yes, yes, I've mentioned that snow is pretty.  And yes, I was probably excited about that first snow of the season, weeks and weeks ago.  But now, I'm downright, utterly, extremely sick and tired of all this cold, mushy, dreary weather.  Not only that, but this new batch of snow is really putting a kink in our plans to go out of town next week.

If this mess isn't all out of here by tomorrow we'll have to cancel our reservations at the camp ground.  :-(

On the upside, before the snow started yesterday we waved good-bye to my van as it was hauled away by a tow truck and taken to the mechanic.  Yay!  I can't wait to get her back.  The only thing I'll miss from driving Tim's car around are his huge speakers.  I can listen to my music the way it was intended to be listened to... LOUD!  Oh well, I'll trade thumping speakers for space and comfort any day.  :-)

Today, well, I don't know what I'll be doing today.  I had planned to do some camper cleaning and packing, but there's still a lot of snow out there.  Burrrr!  I do know that we'll go out to pick the kids up from my mom's around noon.  I have some errands to run, but don't know if we'll get to them in this mess.  Overall, it's a day of whatever happens happens. 

A little update on Time For Death:  There is this literary agency that's been my top pick for a while now.  I've been putting of submitting a query to them for a while.  No one likes rejection, but that's part of a writer's life.  Nonetheless, I put off submitting because of the fear of being rejected by my to choice... kind of like college choices.  However, I finally broke down and submitted to them.  You can't find success by sitting back in fear or uncertainty.  If you don't try, you'll never have the chance to succeed.

So I queried my favorite agency, hit the send button on that e-mail, jumped off a cliff in hopes of hitting water instead of concrete.  I told Tim, "There's no taking it back now."  And now I wait... 

Like I told someone the other day, "In this game, you wait for them.  They don't cater to you.  You'll hear from them when they get good and ready for you to hear from them."  We writers must be patient and try our hardest to resist the temptation to obsess.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Okay, that's it this morning.  I suppose I should go do something.  Bah, humbug to winter!  Try to stay warm if you're dealing with this nastiness too.