Buzz
by John Wolf
The fourth annual Express Yourself Author's Day conference was held here is San Diego on the 25th of January, with an excellent watering-hole wine and cheese party held the night before. We are the "other" conference, but we are mighty. I wanted to let you know how it went. Believe me, there aren't many open bars in San Diego.
Beyond those that you know and love, John Harnish, Jane Martin, and our roving speaker, Dan Poynter were several San Diego based experts.
You're probably, also, familiar with our Penny Sansevieri and Jeniffer Thompson, since they have been to the Valley Forge conference. They, of course, represent our local powerhouse of marketing and media development.
I will breakout the other presenters as I go along and tell you what you missed, which is to say, you won't miss a thing, because of your trusty reporter was on the scene - when not filling my face with the wonderful culinary accoutrements provided by Infinity.
Let me talk about the wine and cheese party first, so I can stop drooling. As usual, Infinity had a first class spread. Jane and John hosted and all of the presenters were there. I have to admit that I was so interested in listening to the tales of Sam Warren, who is the chief editor of an excellent (only second to the Fox&Quill) eZine that focuses on the San Diego writers and editor scene. He is a member of the SD Writers and Editors Guild and does a great job of keeping our community connected to the grid. Check out his site at: http://www.sdwriteway.org/
At the same table was my good friends Pauline Hager, Shirley Parker, and Linda Meckler - also known as the California Wolf Pack. It was good to see everyone at the conference this year - Holler.
We arrived on Friday to a sunny day expecting rain, but we were granted a reprieve from the weather - Infinity can perform miracles. John opened the conference and informed us Stephen King spends part of the year in Sarasota, Florida now, and we have that verified by our good friend Susan Haley and Russ Heitz, both of which are featured here is this issue of Fox&Quill.
Penny Sansevieri (AMarketingExpert.com) reinforced our elevator pitches skills and emphasized the idea of the "book hook." "Sell what the book will do for your reader," was the byline. Use related dates, celebrity events, movies, etc. to help move your promo into the limelight. We work-shopped a few authors book hooks from the attendees. I think we even hit on a few winners for the un-expectant authors.
Dan Poynter (ParaPublishing.com) had an informative pitch on how to become a savvy author about the business of marketing your books by using the many resources available online. "Sell to users the information in your book," was the basis of getting up off the couch and get involved. The time has never been better for the independent author to break the mold of traditional publishing, but working the Internet and causing a presence to be seen.
Bob Goodman (Silvercat.com) is a book format and layout expert that opened up our thinking or rethinking of just sticking to the default settings in Word and think about making your book look good enough to eat (Well, it was getting close to lunch. My mind wandered). Here are some key things to think about: use serif fonts; 60-70 characters per line maximum, "page color" or density caused by heavy print is distracting; line spacing should be opened up slightly to 25-30% of font height (Word is set defaulted to 20%); be consistent with layout elements; optimize the look of photos; covers, back, and the spine all create the first impression - do it up nice. Bottom line - poor layout reflects poorly on the author and diminishes sales.
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Elle Newmark(http://vidsearch.myspace.com/
index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=23110954) presented a wonderful
real life experience of redemption when she dusted off an old manuscript
that had seen its day of rejection after rejection to become a sought after
novel, eventually to be picked up by Simon&Schuster through the William
Morris Agency - a drafts to riches story if I ever heard one. The URL above
is to her book trailer for the book - it's excellent. Elle approach was unique.
She held an online virtual book launch party via a new website and invited
all the agents, editors, publishing insiders she could think up and did some
very cool politicking with fellow writers to obtain teaser free books for
those that participated - buy futures in her book - buy now, get a free gift.
I was somewhat dazzled by her story, so I should stop here, else I get the
info incorrect, but the net results was several agents were impressed by
her approached that had carefully ignored her in the past and couldn't wait
to sign her. Great pitch. Look for her on the Internet in a few months, because
the book was reborn under another title (I bought one of the originals -
"Bones of the Dead"). Currently she is scrubbing reference to the
original, since it was self-published! This was a presentation worthy of
the whole conference.
Jeniffer Thompson (MonkeyCMedia.com) has a new book out, Website Wow, which was the focus of her presentation. She gave us a plethora of great ideas about what makes a good web presence tick from the home page layout critical eye-path (Z-line scan) to dominate placement of images and how to get the headlines to be enticing. Everything from color choices to font choice makes a difference in tuning up your site for success. Jeniffer's husband was there to take professional "head shots" photos. We heard witnesses to how good he is at this.
LinDee Rochelle (PenchantForPenning.com) is our local Infinity rep and a disciplined editor - a fitness trainer for writers. She laid it on the line about edit or die in the attempt to create commercially viable copy. She also pointed out the excellent editing services provided by Infinity at very competitive cost and costly it is - whatta ya gonna do.
Paulette Ensign (tipsbooklets.com) gave a convincing presentation, opening our eyes to the vast potential of repackaging the information from your book into marketable products - like booklets. She has made a fortune doing this. Hey, but I write fiction. What do I do? Hundred tips on nailing a space alien.
Two more items of interest: One, Infinity has a new version of "Become a Published Author!" guideline book that includes the new services like CD, audio-books, etc. You might want to nab a copy. Second, John and Jane have a new book out: "My Book's Published-NowWhat?" We all got an advance review copy, another cool service from Infinity. I won't tell you how it ends, but it involves dropped participles. Great conference - wish you were there.
John's latest novel is set in India - a modern day mystery
Entitled: "Of Beryl and Alabaster" coming soooon.
Thanks to all the Fox & Quill readers... John Wolf
