Arvin, the Author at Work

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Back in June we, (the board and volunteers of the Crested Butte Writers Conference) hosted our yearly event for visitors from all over the country and are fortunate to have some of the immensely talented agents and writers from New York to LA visit and lecture.

The intimate setting of small groups and the time to spend outside the conference with industry professionals was a very fulfilling experience for all participants involved.  For me, it gave an approachable and human face to the publishing world that I admit is easy to demonize on a regular basis. 

By the end of the weekend- One agent hugged me, one kissed me on the cheek and I was good friends with a best selling author.  I’m going to cut to the point here and you can read more as it comes-  Small conferences are the way to go.  While I didn’t walk out of it with a contract; I made contacts, gathered information on a face to face basis and could approach and talk to the agents and presenters afterwards.  In contrast to my experience at the AWP which left me with a headache on the first night after the endless overpowering crowds of people.  

DAY 1-

After the great breakfast provided by the hotel on Mt. Crested Butte, I started to feel a little better about the money I spent… Hey, if there’s a decent meal involved I’m a little more passive about unweighting my wallet.

Next was the Agent Panel which was a great time to Q&A with visiting agents- Ginger Clark, Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, Christine Pride and Anne Bensson.  What I came to realize in this hour is that despite their agent bios, these agents were not a fit for my work.  However, their information and advice was interesting (and salty at times).  One thing that stands out in my mind is the things not to do with an agent they pointed out- such as following them into the bathroom.  Apparently this is not a good thing to do.  Overall this was a lesson in ettiquite and dealings with agents.

The Art of Revision with author Holly Payne was after the sobering agent panel.  Holly is something of a local celebrity in Crested Butte which is nothing compared to her success as an author and a self-published author.  

This is taken from her webpage, next to a picture of her repaired femur-   On June 6, 1994, she was struck by a drunk driver on a mountain road in Colorado. She lay on her back outside a local cemetery, looked at the mountain peak jutting into the sky and determined that if she lived, she would write — and the Skywriter was born. She survived with a few broken bones, learned to walk again, studied, practiced then taught storytelling for 15 years, publishing three novels.

What was that you said about not having the drive time to write?

Other points Holly made were the options available to writers such as print on demand vs. pre-ordering specific amounts of books.  

What floored most of us in the audience was the number of books that would qualify it as a bestseller.  Ready?  Here it is- 1000.  You sell 1000 books and you are in the top 1% of book sales in the United States!  1000 books!  

I don’t know about you but I think know I can do that, and so can you.

It is hard to put all of Holly’s workshop into so few words but here is a link to her presentation- and I suggest to you strongly that it is worth the look.  

One last note on Holly though is her experience with her last book- Kingdom of Simplicity.  Her book about forgiveness and in some ways forgiving the man who struck her on that mountain road was summarily rejected by every agency in New York.  She was even told that the Amish ‘had been done.’  Shockingly, this was within days of the Amish schoolhouse shooting in Pennsylvania.  After which the Amish community forgave the killer of their children and neighbors.  With the courage and conviction of the strenght of her story, Holly founded her own publishing company and put her own book out and now reaps the benifits of her ‘bestselling’ story.

After Holly I was P-U-M-P-E-D!  

Lunch was great and I sat with Joanna and author, Kaki Warner.  Again, I wouldn’t have thought that hanging out with an agent and author would be so much fun and if you heard any laughter at the conference- it came from wherever Kaki was.  

James Scott Bell was up after his hilarious speech before the Sandy Awards.  James gave an awesome presentation on Plotting which is readily available to everyone through his book- The Art of War for Writers.  

If you ever see this man, please buy him a drink.  A natural comedian and actor, the author of 14 bestsellers was essentially my guest for the weekend and took the time to get to know me and my town.

Which brings me to a point that most, (not all) writers are good people.  Everyone at the conference were kindred spirits in a way.  We were all fighting the battle in our own solitary way but the comradery we had as authors gives us all strength to carry on to the next word, the next page and to the last chapter.

Afterward I bounced between Anne Bensson’s Fiction Platform workshop and Ginger Clark’s Agent Dos and Don’ts. Both were good, but to the well read author on the subjects there was nothing extraordinary for me to learn even though others may have taken mountains more information from them.

Apparently there’s a lot of things that get to agents.  I guess I don’t blame them but I started to think about this little group of women that represented the industry an I asked myself- Where were the hard drinking, literary party hunter functional alcoholics I imagined most of my life?  I supposed they either never existed in the first place or simply have died out only to be replaced by these YA sniffing MFA grads.  Ok, that is a harsh criticism of hard working people who are just doing their job.

Unfortunately, we live 9000ft above sea level which meant no one was in the mood for going out after dinner.  Oh well.

DAY 2-

Saturday was a little less intense than Friday which was fine, it allowed me to talk with authors and visitors more and have meaningful conversations about writing.  Janet Lane presented her Twitter & Social Media Marketing workshop which was interesting just to hear the feedback from the participants on how non-techsavy they were.  Being among the younger of the crowd everyone assumed that I was fully integrated but my personal thought is the work comes first.  Everything else comes after.  Like I said, that’s just my opinion.

Some points from her twitter/media workshop were-

Gain readers for your blog, search groups that can help your writing, follow industry professionals and develop your brand.

Next, Jeanne Stein presented her Critique Groups: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.  If anything, this reinforced that fact that I am lucky to be in such a great writing group of supportive and critical writers.  

That night we hosted our Readers Night which is a great chance to do what most writers dread which is read out loud.  The atmosphere was very relaxed however and seemed to belong to just the writers as agents don’t usually attend.  All the writers were excellent and if you had to judge which was published and unpublished, you would be hard pressed to realize that all of them were unpublished.  I was pretty excited for this because I had taken my camera to record my reading but unfortunately the operator turned out to be unable to hit the ‘on’ button.  

I am always jazzed to read becuase I also like to put on a show especially for authors with my take on writing (and drinking, not to mention medicating) and what it takes to get a draft done.  After the comedy, I read from my work that I hope to have completed soon- The Christmas Girl.

DAY 3-

The feedback I got the next day from authors about my story was just the thing I needed to hear to get me back into gear and writing which is what this conference is all about… Oh yea, and to try and get published.  

Unfortunately, I missed the first hour of the day which means I didn’t hear about The Dreaded Synopsis from Joanne Stampfel-Volpe but I did get there in time to hear Holly again focusing on Alternative Publishing Options.  The funny thing about hearing the information this time made me think about maybe gathering the tools to start my own publishing company which is weird…  It made me think that I could do a good job of putting together all the pieces of someone elses book (with my own money) and eventually publish my own work.  Nothing like going from being a driver to being the vehicle.  Sheesh.

One last thing to note from the conference was the First Pages Reading with Agents & Editors.  The brilliant thing about this was it put the agents and editors on the spot for once by having them read the first pages of the manuscript of an unpublished author mixed with a published bestselling author.  I don’t have the stats but it turns out that even agents and editors can’t throughly tell what might or might not sell.  The only agreement they came to was with a Judy Blume story.  All others were met with trepidation and rolling eyes as they discovered what stories they would have rejected.

After this panel, a friend of mine remarked that he saw fear.  He saw fear from the agents who didn’t know where their industry was going and what might happen to their jobs in the coming years.  Scary.

In the end the closing remarks by Kaki were simple and to the point.  If it’s important to you- don’t give up.  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

This is a blog entry from Nathan Bransford.  April 13th, 2010.

In a strange twist of either delusions of grandeur or masochism, writers have done their best to convince the world that writing is a wondrous pursuit filled with nothing but sudden bursts of inspiration and creativity after painful writer’s block.

You know how it goes in the movies and on TV: The morose writer will be walking down the street and a stranger will say to them, “Hey, jerkwad, what are you staring at?” and then the writer will get a funny little smile and walk a little faster and then pretty soon they’re skipping down the street toward their typewriter shouting, “Jerkwad! Jerkwad!! BY GOD I’VE GOT IT!!!!” and then there’s a montage of them frantically typing out their future bestseller.

I don’t know about your writing process, but that isn’t how mine works.

Sure, there are Eureka moments walking down the street or in the shower or while at the zoo (“Monkeys… MONKEYS!!!”), but if novelists wrote only when they were inspired it would take a hundred years to string together a novel. If you’re really going to finish one, you’re not only going to have to spend quite a lot of time writing and revising when you don’t feel like it, you’re going to have to spend quite a lot of time writing when you would rather be lighting your toes on fire.

The great Jane Yolen has a name for this: BIC. Butt. In. Chair. That is the writing process. Butt in chair.

You could also call it:

OMGTWISNTBICGOBINTW: “Oh my god the weather is so nice today but I can’t go outside because I need to write.”

IRWICGTTBGBIHTW: “I really wish I could go to that baseball game but I have to write.”

DMMIJGTSATBCSUITOS: “Don’t mind me, I’m just going to stare at this blank computer screen until I think of something.”

Just about everyone on the planet thinks about writing a novel at some point. Many of them really could and many of them could do it really well.

But there’s only one way to actually do it: BIC. Powering through when you want to stop, blocking out days on the calendar when there are more fun things you could be doing, staring at the pad or screen early mornings and late nights, and most of all, setting aside your doubts along the way.

And that’s of course even before you summon your willpower to try and jump through the hoops necessary to get the thing published.

If writing is always fun you may be doing it wrong.

Christopher Meeks just sent me his newsletter detailing his AWP experience.  Here are some eloquent samples from it.

Particularly good was the panel The Future of Book Publishing withagent Julie Barer, Tin House Books publisher Lee Montgomery, Melville House Books publisher Dennis Loy Johnson, and Poets & Writers editor Mary Gannon. - 

 They made the point that today’s big publishers are owned by hedge funds and big conglomerates, and the companies look at an author’s sales constantly, aided by Bookscan, which tracks books. Barer pointed out that if you want to make money and work with big publishers, then you need to write the kind of story they want, which is often genre fiction.

Johnson noted that most authors he knows hate their publishers, but in his company, Melville House Publishing, he uses his own money and he has the biggest risk. Authors get their advance, and if a book tanks, it’s he who loses the most. He publishes because he loves great books and wants to champion his authors. He urged authors to find ways to work well with their publishers. 

Montgomery pointed out that no one at Tin House Books, an offshoot of the magazine, knows what will be a big seller, so they go for the books they love, about ten titles a year. If the company sells at least five thousand books, the book was a good choice. Last year on another panel, I heard an editor at McSweeney’s gave the same sales figure, while an editor at MacAdam/Cage gave a slightly higher number. The point is, most novels published don’t sell a lot, and it takes a lot of effort to get a book out there.

They all said that today’s authors, whether published big, small, or through self-publishing, need to understand marketing and to actively promote their own books. During the conference, writer Susan Taylor Chehak came across me in the Hyatt’s lounge, and in catching up with me mentioned that she recently met with a Random House editor who asked, “If we publish you, what’s your marketing plan?” She said, “I’m starting to wonder why I need a publisher.” That’s worth pondering.

MICHAEL CHABON-

Facing about two thousand people packed into the huge and elegant Hyatt ballroom, Chabon said that usually when he speaks, he takes questions from the audience. Because the audience in this case was so large, he’d play the parts of questioners from the audience.

One of the first questions from a faux questioner noted some of the imperfections in Chabon’s writing—something I can believe he’s been asked because in America we like to create celebrities and then tear them down. He spoke about how when he sets out to write a novel, he has huge aspirations. When he’s done and the book is published, even to acclaim, he sees what he wasn’t able to do and feels a failure. He said in another interview that “anyone who has ever received a bad review knows how it outlasts, by decades, the memory of a favorable word.”

Chabon spoke in the ballroom of how as writers, the stories we create are not reality. They don’t have the pace of reality. Our job, however, is to make the fantastic seem real. He’s someone who believes in storytelling, that we have to avoid “plotless stories sparkling with epiphanic dew” and instead engage our readers with character and what people do. In short, we can’t forget to entertain.

Also our best novels, he said, are created with artifice and pattern, built on lies to betray deeper truths. 

Another question was on the value of MFA creative writing programs. He said that it was in the UC Irvine creative writing program where he grew from boy to man. The criticism he received on his first major assignment, though delivered with kindness from his professor, at first shattered him, then pushed him farther than he ever expected or knew. He’s a product of a great program.

Another question asked why did he write, and he told a story about going into his garage and finding nearly thirty-year-old five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disks. He was able to retrieve old files, one of them being an application for a writing program. Among the answers on why he wanted to be a writer was “for the Benjamins.” He wanted “to make art that I can sell for cash money.”

I find that writing literary novels—novels encouraged in all writing programs, and novels that I like to write—are a hugely difficult way to make money. People buy, for instance, Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels because not only are they well written, but also they are mysteries with a reoccurring main character.

Genre fiction can be an art, too, and Chabon is now exploring genre, particularly with his recent The Yiddish Policeman’s Ball, which won five genre awards, including the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He said in another interview that perhaps our definition of genre is “such a narrow, debased concept of entertainment.” However, he said, “I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period.”

His delivery for the nearly two hours was flawless and filled with humor. Like his books, he’s an engaging person and reminds many of us in the audience what we, if we’re lucky enough to get on a stage, must do when we speak. We must educate and entertain. Period.

TO PUBLISH OF SELF-PUBLISH- 

On the second Saturday in April at 9 a.m., we presented our topic in a large room at the Colorado Conference Center. In the days before the event, I’d attended several panels and walked out on a few. I could see that not all panels took as a mandate to use their 75-minutes well. Some panelists were not prepared. Other panels felt too academic where people read in monotones from papers.

There were great panels, though, standards to meet or beat, such as two groups talking about book marketing, another on summer writing conferences, and another on the future of book reviewing. They were engaging and didn’t waste time. I wanted our panel to be helpful and fit in as much material as entertainingly as possible. Thus, we worked out that Daniel and I would give short Powerpoint presentations and Ivory and Henry would talk about the things to consider before aiming for a traditional publisher or for self-publishing.

Moments before we started as people were arriving, I explained to my group that all of us were on a stage, and the rules of theatre applied. Don’t upstage anyone else. Whoever was talking, look at them. Don’t look bored or type text messages on your cell phone, as I saw being done on a few other panels. Keep it lively.

And we did. Ivory explained that today’s authors, whether published traditionally or not, had to participate in their own book’s promotion.Red Room, as you may know, is a gathering place of published authors as well as those wishing to publish. It gives writers a home page of their own to show their books, videos, articles, published reviews and more as well as a place to blog.

For published authors with books to promote, the cost is just $12 a month, and for poets, short story writers, and writers without books yet, it’s free.

She explained that to self-publish well required dedication, a sense of quality, and a need to work on marketing at least fifteen minutes a day. Ivory also spoke about other good sites to use, such asGoodreads.

Daniel made a great point that people who make films outside the film system are called independent filmmakers, and they are cool. “The term ‘self-publishing,’ though,” he said, “sets some people off as if it’s a bad thing. You might call yourselves ‘independent publishers’.” That gained applause.

I started the discussion with defining traditional publishing and self-publishing. Traditional publishing is that after you write your first book, you find an agent using people you know or querying agents with a short letter and a sample. Once you have an agent, he or she will submit your manuscript to acquisition editors. Once your book is accepted, the publisher will then give you an editor to work on the final manuscript.

This is one of the advantages of traditional publishing: every sentence of your book is looked at carefully. Big publishers also can have big marketing budgets. Marketing is everything when it comes to books. In short, the route an author follows in traditional publishing includes:

•      Write the book

•      Find an agent

•      Agent finds a publisher — get advance

•      Work with an editor

•      Agree on a final version

•      Publisher designs book, sets pub date

•      Wait a year – book comes out

With self-publishing, there are two distinct routes. One is what I call “home publishing,” where an author is so eager to get in print there is little or nothing of what happens in traditional publishing. A person might write a book furiously and do no proofreading or editing. Alas, too many self-published books appear this way. To be a home publisher:

•      Write the book

•      Upload it to Lulu or another service

•      Create your own cover

•      You’re published in minutes!

•      Good luck marketing it

I happened to be an editor for a publisher in the eighties, so I know from experience how books are made. When I gathered my previously published short fiction into a single manuscript, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, my agent at the time didn’t want to represent it because “there’s no money in short fiction.” (He’s right).

So I created my own imprint, White Whisker Books, and did everything that traditional publishers did, including hiring an editor and proofreaders, doing a lot of pre-publication publicity, hiring a publicist, and sending out advanced reading copies to reviewers. In short, do the following:

•      Write the book

•      Hire an editor to polish

•      Select a print-on-demand publisher

•      Proofread, proofread, proofread.

•      Hire designer for cover and interior

•      Upload final manuscript and get sample copies

•      Select a publication date four months ahead

•      Mail advanced reading copies (ARCs)

•      On publication day, have a party and a reading

•      Release ebook versions of book

•      Market your guts out

During our presentation, I could see people taking notes, and a forest of hands arose when we took questions, all of the questions fabulous. One of the first questions was “How do you learn about marketing?” and I suggested a fabulous book, The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

Like it or not, digital publishing is what’s happening now. The above is only the barest of explanations. To learn more, click on the above links or send in your questions to Henry’s Self-Publishing Review.

The last day of the AWP was fun and sort of laid back.  There was much to still learn though and we got off to an early start.

1st Panel- To Publish or Self Publish?  The Changing Landscape of Publication.

This panel presented the nuts and bolts of what Seth Harwood and Shawna Yang Ryan had to say.  In retrospect, compared to all the other panels, this one was quite streamlined and elegant.  The power point was a nice change from the usual scene of panelists sitting in front of a giant blank wall and the information was very focused, well presented and unlike most panels- stayed on topic. 

Christopher Meeks presented his own story of self/indie publishing.  While trying to get his short fiction published he discovered (a fact heard at almost every panel), that short fiction didn’t sell.  Instead he took the path of using lightning source and began the task of sending his now published book to reviewers and other people who could recommend his work to others.  This plan worked in ways probably he couldn’t have thought and eventually his garnered much acclaim for his work.  Part of his success was tied to his online presence and his membership on the author website redroom.com.  

Which brings us to Ivory Madison.  Ivory Madison was on the panel to talk about her work on Huntress and creating and running redroom.com.  What I took from Ivory was that this is probably the best time to get on-board with indie/self-publishing.  

Henry Baum, author of the American Book of the Dead was frank and an ardent supporter of indie-publishing in lieu of his experiences with agents and publishing houses.  His own website selfpublishingreview.com and partner site Backword Booksboth are great places to start if you are curious about the quality of the books being released in the self publishing world as opposed to the drivel that is associated with antiquated ‘vanity’ publishing.  

Lastly, Daniel Will-Harris; book designer, watch designer, consultant and creative genius gave another awesome power point presenting the pros and cons of what he is now calling indie publishing as opposed to self publishing.  According to him (and I have to agree) self publishing has the stigma of being the last effort for people who have been rejected by everyone else.  However, this is no longer the case as even published, well-known authors are turning to indie publishing.  Classically some of the most renowned writers like James Joyce were independently published.  Daniel also showed us what a good book cover looked like vs. a bad book cover.  

I don’t know what else to say about the wealth of information that this panel provided.  This was the lowest attended event I had been to and if anything lights the fire under my chair to get moving on any plans to indie publish something since the masses have yet to catch on. 

2nd Panel-The Before and After of Marketing Your Manuscript.

This was our last panel and thankfully it was a good one.  Before entering each person received a little booklet with the same title as the panel.  M. Scott Douglass of Main Street Rag Publishing said that he was going to skip the introductions because he had printed them (beautifully I might add) in our booklet.  With cigar in hand and gray beard, M reminded me of an old school publisher.  Brash and forward, M had my attention from the start.  While the other panelists were good, M was the main attraction.  When discussing e-books he said, “Oh, I’ll be printing books long after they’re done printing books, I have the machines, they can’t stop me!”  M. Scott in fact reads, edits and - then by his own hands- prints the books he sells.  Other valuable information from this panel as if it weren’t alluded to already were-

Make a website, you are no one without it in the 21st century.  

Know your market.

When you read your work in public, read well, read loud, and engage your audience.

Having the basics covered in the booklet, the panel was free to openly discuss any topic with the audience.  This was a great way to end our AWP experience.  Maybe I’ll be in DC for the next one.  We’ll see.  

The rest of the AWP I spent wandering the book fair and bouncing in and out of panels about writing race, South Asian authors and craft.  At this point we were pretty over the whole deal and couldn’t wait to get back to CB.  But not before having a drink with my new friends Henry, Christopher and Daniel.

Day two of the AWP began with the bookfair section of the conference.  Bruce had gone the day before and said that the journal and publishing booths were literally cat-calling people for submissions of poetry and fiction.  Of course they were not doing that the moment I decided to walk the bookfair.  It was nice though because everyone I talked to was very friendly and outgoing.  This was extremely informative and healthy for my own booklust as every other table was giving away literary journals and submission guidelines.  At the end of my wandering it was just nice to talk to people on the inside the industry about their opinions and what their specific goals as publishers and editors were.

1st Panel- The Future of Book Publishing:  How Authors Should Navagate the New Market.

While the title of this panel sounds intriguing it actually shook me as a writer and a bookseller.  One panelist even (jokingly) said ‘don’t ask me, I don’t know what I’m talking about.’  These editors/publishers/agents actually sounded discouraging for writers and booksellers when it came to talking about book-scan, amazon and the ipad.  The future was pretty dim according to these ‘insiders.’  

Dennis Loy Johnson was the only one on this panel that told it like it is without the sugar.  With some appreciated agression, Dennis pointed at his audience and said ‘You writers, you have to know your market!’  Dennis went on to talk about how much of his own money he puts into publishing a book.  In effect it sounded like he was saying that he was gambaling whenever he published a book.  Which really what any publisher is doing.  Since coming back, I have enjoyed Melville Publishing’s website and Dennis’ blog, you will too.  Again, the work lies now in the writer’s hands to promote and sell themselves and their work, not to mention being creative and unique in how they do it.

This panel was even a little dismissive of some questions but overall I enjoyed the candor and energy they had as opposed to other panels.

2nd Panel- The Southern Review 75th Anniversary Reading.

This was it.  A nice kick-back reading from some poets and writers including the awesome Steve Almond.  After the reading I bought Steve’s book of extra-short stories and essays he only sells at readings called This Won’t Take a Minute Honey.  In our brief minute I spoke to Steve whose advice to my writing woes was, ‘You’re young, don’t give up.’  Thanks Steve, you are the man.

3rd Panel- Plot as Ritual, Not Representation.

This was overly academic, disjointed and slightly schizophrenic.  While John Dufrense was awesome- the rest of this panel was putting me to sleep.  John’s animated description of plot was hectic and fun and had most of the audience interested in what he was saying.  The rest might as well have been back at their universities.  

Sorry this has taken a while to prepare but the three days of the conference and returning to Crested Butte to clean out the cafe during our ‘off-season’ week has left me with little time until now to dig through the leaflets, business cards and literary journals gathered in those three head-twisting days.

1st Panel- Shameless Book Promotion: Squad 365 Rides Again!

This thing was packed, and that set the tone for a lot of the AWP’s more popular and informative sessions.  Also, this was the starter to much of what was reiterated by many panelists that writers in the 21st century will have to employ radical and inventive ways of promoting themselves and their work.  The one piece of info that shocked me was some writers are resorting to doing readings in peoples homes!  The host and the writer gather as many people that can fit and boom- a reading.  Check out what they have to say here at their blog.

2nd Panel- What’s Your Platform?  What Agents & Editors Are Looking For in Writers.

This was boring and insulting.  I hate to say that but it was.  Especially having freshly paid over 200 dollars for this experience the panel lacked any excitement or life and failed to present anything other than using blogging and facebook as options for writers.  Even the idea of a platform quickly soured me on the industry.  Lets use Hemingway and The Old Man and the Sea as an example.  In the 21st century, if you had a genre altering, earth moving, nobel prize winning story such as The Old Man and The Sea you would need a blog and a facebook page to create your platform based on… fishing?!?!?  So you gather some number of faithful and dedicated readers and you get your book about fishing published and your fans buy it so and so forth.  I don’t like this model or idea, however this is sadly how even well published authors have to keep themselves read.  What this leads to though is that the industry is in shambles, the traditional routes of becoming published are antiquated and increasingly unreliable in reaching an audience.  Over three days, these ideas become more flushed out in my mind…

Side-note: this panel essentially is saying that online followers and a blog is important to building a following to present yourself as an active writer in the world so when you approach an agent or editor- those readers/followers are another bullet in your gun when pitching.  The presenters I will give credit for being ‘on the ground’ so to speak.  They are using the tools of media to accomplish their goals as writers, something which is contradicted in another panel I will talk about later.

3rd Panel- Publishing Alternatives

This was not on the list of panels and were it not for the recommendation of the previous panel I would have missed out on the best, most informative session during the three days of the AWP.  Shawna Yang Ryan and Seth Harwood as well as two others I regret not remembering their names presented an awesome panel on the alternate routes to the traditional equasion of publishing.  The traditional model being you find an agent or editor and have your work published with press and promotion provided by the publishing house.  Those days are long gone my friends.  Shawna Yang Ryan, author and teacher talked about her transition from a small publisher to a big one and her good agent vs. her bad agent.  Seth Harwood was by far the most engaging panelist-  Seth did everything he was supposed to do.  He got his MFA, published over 3/4’s of his short stories and… nothing.  How it usually works in the post MFA world is you graduate, publish in journals and then get approached by an agent.  That never happened for Seth.  Instead of giving up and relegating himself to a life of waiting tables he got creative.  

Seth wrote a story against his literary predisposition involving what he liked- guns, gangsters and women.  What he did next blew my mind-  Seth recorded his ENTIRE manuscript (bad accents and all) and uploaded it to podiobooks.com to be downloaded for FREE.  Eventually his story became heavily downloaded and he built a following (he created [sigh] a platform).  When Seth self published in both ebook and paper he decided to release the book on Palm Sunday, (Jack Palms is the main character of the book) and outsold many bestselling traditionally published authors.  Seth is a model for what authors of the future are going to have to do to be successful.  Not neccessarily doing what he exactly did but being creative and coming up with innovative, new ways to promote and reach an audience.  Visit his site here.  

Side-note:  Seth eventually became published by a large publishing house but when he tried to work with them on promotion, the flat out refused to help him.  

4th Panel- Goodbye Blue Monday: Remembering the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut.

If you read this blog then you know- I dig Vonnegut.  It was a nice end to the day to listen to friends and teachers talk about how awesome it was to know and teach Vonnegut.  Dan Wakefield specifically was interesting to listen to reflecting on their friendship and how Vonnegut would engage people- especially people that banned his books.  Dan talked about how Vonnegut would actually visit school districts that banned his books and respond frequently to teachers and students about his work.