Names

I forgot to mention yesterday who would be participating in the Horror of Writing workshop; Brian Keene, Douglas Winter, Matthew Warner. Ronald Damien Malfi (brotherrabbit) and John Edward Lawson.

One thing I found very interesting at the Women of Horror mass signing was how often promotion came up. The signing was actually part of a retreat put together of The Women of Persephone group and I heard that besides workshopping fiction they also did a lot of stuff around how to promote your writing. It’s the same with publishing these days. It definitely is not good enough to choose great authors, polish the work, do good layout and covers. The marketing is really the key. It doesn’t seem right that authors and even publishers should have to spend so much energy on these things. It would be nice to believe that just putting out a great product, or in the author’s case writing superb fiction, would be enough. Unfortunately if you look around and see what’s successful it quickly becomes apparent that it’s not necessarily the best material, just which book has the best buzz.

current mood: contemplative