The Writing Life: Last Night’s Talk

Author Michele Lang and I did a great presentation last night at a local library about ebooks and epublishing. We had folks in the audience from many different genres of writing who were all interested in learning how epublishing works. The discussion was lively, and by comparing my path with Michele’s, I learned an awful lot. We fielded a lot of questions and tried to iron out the differences between self-publishing, vanity press, and the various “flavors” of epublishers, among other things. It’s amazing how, as ebooks find their way, there are so many businesses popping up and the way some of the more successful epublishers are now doing a hybrid kind of business where they’re branching out to print books, but in a new business model that’s changing the way books are getting to market.

All in all, it’s an exciting time to be an author. There are many avenues to getting published today and more opportunities than ever before. Of course, one of the dirty little secrets of being in the “new media” is the need for the author to do a lot of self-promotion. Even doing the talk last night was another way to get my name out there, though of course, that was a secondary motivation for participating in the event. Still, every appearance and discussion with a potetial reader is a step in the right direction. The crowd last night seemed interested in the ways I’ve discovered - by watching and learning from folks who know way more about marketing than I do - of publicizing my ebooks and print books.

I’ve had good teachers, though most of them never knew they were teaching by example. But still, I’ve watched what other people do and the things I liked and thought would work for me, I did as well. I’ve also put my geeky nature to work by building a website and establishing a web presence of sorts. I learned a lot of ways to manipulate graphics and design things like bookmarks, postcards and other giveaways. Of course, I never realized I’d need to learn this kind of thing when I was sitting at home writing my first book! That all came later.

As for the presenation, I think it went well. We had an interested and lively group and I absolutely love working with Michele. Her first NY-published book came out this week and I just know she’s going to have great success with it!