Okay, it's been a couple days and I am fairly well rested. I was afraid that I would forget all the important things about Charmed to Death and would not be able to give you a blow by blow of Bouchercon 2008. Then I realized you probably don't want one. So I decided to give a little different view of my experience at the conference this past weekend. To make it a little more interesting and honest, I am going to do a pros and peeves format for my weekend.
Pro: Ruth Jordan and Judy Bobolik are the most awesome conference organizers. This is the best Bouchercon I have been to in a very long time! These women rock! Overall, they picked a GREAT hotel (despite the early morning protestors who think Jon Jordan is Satan-and they are SO wrong!) The staff was great, the facility was great, and the layout of the rooms was great. The organizers made certain that the attendees were taken care of throughout the conference with the hospitality suite to beat all! A nice friendly atmosphere to relax when overwhelmed. Refreshments--for free! I know--I could hardly believe it myself and not just water and bananas. And the volunteers who helped us find bathrooms, book bags, register, panel rooms, and all other things were the best of the best.
Peeve: Not so happy with the Book room. I know these booksellers work hard and they do deserve praise for being there and making books available to the attendees. However, I saw too many mid-list and debut authors walking around during their signing times looking for their books so they could sign. Don't you think it should be required that the booksellers make certain that every panelist and featured author has something to sign during the conference? I was also disappointed to see so many A-list authors' books on the tables at collectible prices when those author's were not even there supporting the conference. I'm just saying.
This leads me to my first author spotlight. I attended a young adult panel and on that panel was Lauren Henderson (Kiss Me Kill Me)
, Brenda Chapman (Where Trouble Leads), and Joan Delfattore (What Johnny Shouldn`t Read: Textbook Censorship in America).
This was a great panel. The gals spoke openly and at length about so many issues I can't even recall. Since young readers are so important to the future of the industry, I think it could have easily been one of the most important discussions all weekend. The sad thing, I wanted to get a signed copy of Lauren Henderson's Kiss Me Kill Me, and not one single bookseller had it available. Lauren spent most of her signing time looking for it for fans who wanted it. This is one book I will definitely get from Amazon.com. How sad is that?
I was pleased to be able to spend time with some of my favorite authors Evelyn David (Murder Off the Books) Margot Justes (A Hotel in Paris), Austin Camacho (Blood and Bone), Carl Brookins (Bloody Halls)--who is too charming for his own good, and the always on fire Tim Broderick (Cash & Carry). Tim trekked around the hotel on his cane after knee surgery hand selling books in the hallway and blogging like a madman. A sight to behold!
I think one of my favorite things about this weekend though was the progress I made with regard to moving Echelon to the next level of success. My week started on Monday, last, when I had lunch with Teresa Burrell who I met and spoke with at last years San Diego Writer's Conference. I am pleased to announce that Teresa signed her contract with Echelon on Thursday morning! She will see her first novel, tentatively titled AN SOB Story in 2010. We chummed around most of the weekend and it was a delight!
I also got to get hugs from Tom Schreck. If you have not read his Duffy Dumbrowski Mystery series featuring Al the Bassett Hound, you must! Tom represents more progress for Echelon as he recently signed a contract for the third book in the Duffy series with Echelon and he brings with him unbridled enthusiasm, incredible writing skills, and it doesn't hurt that he is easy on the eyes too.
And the highlight for me was meeting The Sex Club author, L.J. Sellers. This gal is pure dynamite! We also spent a huge amount of time together, getting to know each other and talking shop, and I'll tell you right her, right now. I have 100 more pages of her second book left to read and I'm pretty sure I am gonna be begging her to join Echelon as well.
But now I am exhausted from the recap and I must go actually do some business, publishing houses don’t run themselves you know. More tomorrow, and there is plenty!
©Karen L. Syed
Pro: Ruth Jordan and Judy Bobolik are the most awesome conference organizers. This is the best Bouchercon I have been to in a very long time! These women rock! Overall, they picked a GREAT hotel (despite the early morning protestors who think Jon Jordan is Satan-and they are SO wrong!) The staff was great, the facility was great, and the layout of the rooms was great. The organizers made certain that the attendees were taken care of throughout the conference with the hospitality suite to beat all! A nice friendly atmosphere to relax when overwhelmed. Refreshments--for free! I know--I could hardly believe it myself and not just water and bananas. And the volunteers who helped us find bathrooms, book bags, register, panel rooms, and all other things were the best of the best.
Peeve: Not so happy with the Book room. I know these booksellers work hard and they do deserve praise for being there and making books available to the attendees. However, I saw too many mid-list and debut authors walking around during their signing times looking for their books so they could sign. Don't you think it should be required that the booksellers make certain that every panelist and featured author has something to sign during the conference? I was also disappointed to see so many A-list authors' books on the tables at collectible prices when those author's were not even there supporting the conference. I'm just saying.
This leads me to my first author spotlight. I attended a young adult panel and on that panel was Lauren Henderson (Kiss Me Kill Me)
, Brenda Chapman (Where Trouble Leads), and Joan Delfattore (What Johnny Shouldn`t Read: Textbook Censorship in America).This was a great panel. The gals spoke openly and at length about so many issues I can't even recall. Since young readers are so important to the future of the industry, I think it could have easily been one of the most important discussions all weekend. The sad thing, I wanted to get a signed copy of Lauren Henderson's Kiss Me Kill Me, and not one single bookseller had it available. Lauren spent most of her signing time looking for it for fans who wanted it. This is one book I will definitely get from Amazon.com. How sad is that?
I was pleased to be able to spend time with some of my favorite authors Evelyn David (Murder Off the Books)
Margot Justes (A Hotel in Paris), Austin Camacho (Blood and Bone), Carl Brookins (Bloody Halls)--who is too charming for his own good, and the always on fire Tim Broderick (Cash & Carry). Tim trekked around the hotel on his cane after knee surgery hand selling books in the hallway and blogging like a madman. A sight to behold!I think one of my favorite things about this weekend though was the progress I made with regard to moving Echelon to the next level of success. My week started on Monday, last, when I had lunch with Teresa Burrell who I met and spoke with at last years San Diego Writer's Conference. I am pleased to announce that Teresa signed her contract with Echelon on Thursday morning! She will see her first novel, tentatively titled AN SOB Story in 2010. We chummed around most of the weekend and it was a delight!
I also got to get hugs from Tom Schreck. If you have not read his Duffy Dumbrowski Mystery series featuring Al the Bassett Hound, you must! Tom represents more progress for Echelon as he recently signed a contract for the third book in the Duffy series with Echelon and he brings with him unbridled enthusiasm, incredible writing skills, and it doesn't hurt that he is easy on the eyes too.
And the highlight for me was meeting The Sex Club
author, L.J. Sellers. This gal is pure dynamite! We also spent a huge amount of time together, getting to know each other and talking shop, and I'll tell you right her, right now. I have 100 more pages of her second book left to read and I'm pretty sure I am gonna be begging her to join Echelon as well.But now I am exhausted from the recap and I must go actually do some business, publishing houses don’t run themselves you know. More tomorrow, and there is plenty!
©Karen L. Syed
8 Comments on Pros & Peeves: A Bouchercon Recap, last added: 10/17/2008
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I just wanted to thank Karen publicly for all her hard work on behalf of all her mystery writers during the whirlwind that was Bouchercon.
I also had a super time, and you can get a slightly different perspective of the con at my blog, http://ascamacho.blogspot.com.
Karen, I suspected you were a smart woman from the very get-go, but now that you agree with me about LJ Sellers, of course I think you're absolutely brilliant! LOL. You cannot go wrong with that woman, I am convinced, because MY GAWD, she knows how to market, too. Am looking forward to the blog book tour coming up. ;)
Dani
http://quickest.blogbooktourguide.ever.com
OK people, I am blushing, and that hasn't happened in 30 years. Karen is dynamite too, and together we could be dangerous!
Kudos to Karen for all her persistent hard work touting we humble (ahem) authors. Alas, of all the 250+ pictures I made which will appear on my website soon (www.carlbrookins.com) there will be none of Karen. Why? You may well ask. Because every one of her is seriously flawed. I think she did something to my camera whenever I pointed it her way. Awesome woman, this.
See y'all down the road at Indianapolis.
Karen, great post! It was lovely to see you, as usual, and you bring up a good point. The book room is always a source of anxiety for new authors - "Will they have my books? Will they have enough of my books?"
I've learned that the only guarantee is if I myself call and ask one of the attending booksellers if they're going to carry my books, and even then, I've learned to bring extra. Booksellers are always happy to sell published authors' books on commission, and the WORST thing is to run out when readers are buying, so why take the chance?
As authors we have to remember that booksellers are having just as hard a time as everyone is (and can you imagine schlepping all those books across the country?). They're going to do what they think is going to net them the most profit, so until we're all bestsellers, too, we need to take a little of the responsibility ourselves. It becomes a habit, not a terrible hassle.
Great event synopsis and sharing, Karen. You made me REALLY wish I had been able to attend. I'm also a new and big fan of LJ, I read her Sex Club book just a few weeks ago and was floored with how well she writes. I figured she was a dynamo in person, I mean anyone who writes mystery books AND does standup comedy has gotta be real load of a person (smile).
Marvin Blogs at Free Spirit: http://inspiritandtruths.blogspot.com/
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Karen-
It's a continuing peeve of mine that the booksellers will not carry YA or children's titles - even if the folks are speaking at the conference. In Madison, we had Pete Hautman on a panel, a National Book Award winner - and his books were not there. Painful.
Kiss Me Kill Me is excellent.
I hated missing the conference this year, but with the new baby, we decided to travel as a family instead to Disney...
Thanks for taking the time to give us all this info, and your take on things. (I was unable to attend.)
The book room sounded like a bummer. I would have been peeving, too. :(
Congrats on your authors. Here's to them making more strides future-wise.