cj Sez: Mark your calendar! There’s a book signing coming up,
and many of the authors whose stories are in these anthologies will be there to
sign your copies.
Scheduled for a local indie bookshop, The Mobile
Bookseller on Friday, February 7th from 3 to 6 p.m.
Plan to stop by for a meet and greet with local authors. The Mobile Bookseller is located at 3990 Government
Blvd. Mobile, AL, in the Skyland Shopping Center, at the intersection of Hwy. 90 and Azalea
Road.
///
Because I am crashing to finish and submit a short
story by February 1 (and I have two to three thousand more good words to go before I
have to find a speedy beta reader), I’m going to re-post a guest piece by C.
Hope Clark. I first posted her “You Are Not Alone” essay in 2016. There’s a lot
of good information in it that bears repeating.
You Are Not
Alone . . . and Shouldn’t Be
By C. Hope Clark
Writing is a profession of
isolationism. If we didn’t have internet, we’d be recluses of the highest
order. Or would we?
Writing takes considerable alone
time, but without the internet we would be out amongst the masses, getting
ideas, discussing concepts because, after all, we can’t know it all. Add to
that connecting with agents, publishers, editors and the public in general. In
years past, writers made a point of meeting other writers, and coming into New
York to dine with editors. Agents were life-long friends. Hemingway often
socialized with Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Max
Eastman, and he was acquainted with the painters Miro and Picasso. He
appreciated rubbing elbows with other creators, even if in many circles he was
considered their superior. Back in those days they propelled, endorsed, and
gossiped about each other, making for great news . . . and sales. Paris networking
Networking is critical in any
profession. While we need the alone time to create, we need feedback on our
quality. We need professionals in the other aspects of writing and publishing
to guide us. We need to see how those ahead of us got there. Regardless of how
independent we think we are in your publishing, which self-publishing has
allowed us to be, we still find ourselves needing the knowledge of successful
indie authors, graphic designers, formatters, and the people at CreateSpace,
IngramSparks, Draft2Digital and other self-publishing resources.
We cannot know it all.
Then there’s the magic that happens
in a face-to-face. Meeting people in person comes with its own rewards that are
more unobtainable online. Professional organizations, Yahoogroups, critique
groups, and conferences make you walk in as a writer and see how you measure
up. While that scares introverted types, rarely do we walk away from those
experiences without knowledge we would not have achieved otherwise.
Online, we learn what we query, but
sometimes we aren’t certain which questions to ask. We search and search,
hoping we are hitting the nail on the head, but then nobody is there to tell us
whether we did.
In person, we can achieve so much
more. For instance:
Sitting in a conference, we hear
the best-of-the-best talk about how they achieved their success with anecdotes
we might not find in a blog post or magazine interview.
Sitting in a conference class, we
hear how-tos and examples, but then hands shoot up. We hear questions we hadn’t
thought to ask, which makes us think of additional questions, and we find our
own hand rising.
Seated in a room, we grow weary of
the silence so we introduce ourselves to the people on either side of us, or
across the table. The conversation leads to promotion tactics and publishing
preferences, and soon you’re meeting them after class or following them to the
lobby, excitedly sharing comparison.
We share business cards and email
addresses in person, the eye contact visceral because they have connections . .
. or you have connections they want, and in exchange they are willing to make
introductions for you, barter editing each other’s book, or promote each other.
We sit next to a writer who has won
awards, and we learn how that works. We enter a presentation of panel of
authors who’ve made six figure incomes from their talent, and we are able to
ask detailed questions as to how those journeys took place.
We sit in a class, hearing the
lecture, but that’s not what’s important. The charisma, the passion, the
excited enthusiasm of the speaker makes you listen keener and raises your own
excitement. This person has done something with their writing, and they are who
you’d like to be. You want that feeling.
However, many authors avoid
conferences because of the cost. There are ways to diminish that expense.
Share a motel room with someone.
Watch for conferences closer to
home, or close to relatives you need to visit.
Volunteer to work the conference in
exchange for the fee.
Apply for scholarships. Some
conferences have them but do not advertise them. Ask.
Apply to your state arts commission
seeking financial assistance.
Ask your writing group to sponsor
you, with you bringing back handouts and lesson plans that you in turn will
teach them.
Or you could apply to writing
retreats, many of which have scholarships and financial aid. They may not have
speakers, but they often have other writers on site whom you can still share
experiences and knowledge with.
Or you can join professional
organizations like Romance Writers of America or Society of Children’s Writers
and Illustrators and learn from those local chapters or attend their one-day
conferences held around the country. That cost is minimal.
Regardless how you network, find
ways to step outside yourself and learn from others. If I had not attended a
Sisters in Crime chapter one Saturday, I would not have heard about libraries
needing writers to teach. From there I landed a contracted gig enabling me to
get paid for speaking in three dozen appearances across my state. From there, I
was chosen for the SC Humanities Speakers Roster, opening up more doors.
None of this was on my to-do list
for the year, but I was willing to make the adjustment. The grant was not on
the internet. The roster was on the web, but I didn’t know about it until
getting involved with this grant.
Networking opens doors.
Face-to-face exchanges can create ideas and connections found no other way. You
cannot answer all your problems yourself. We do not operate in a vacuum. The
maxim that it’s better to have more than one set of eyes carries merit.
****
C. Hope Clark is
founder of FundsforWriters.com, a resource of grants, crowdfunding, agents,
publishers, and markets with calls for submissions. Her newsletter reaches
35,000 writers.
Hope’s latest novel (Book 6) in her award-winning Edisto
Island Mysteries is the five-star rated EDISTO TIDINGS. A click on the cover will take you to the Amazon site.
///
That’s all for this week’s post. You-all guys keep on
keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.
cj
Autographed print copies of CHOOSING CARTER, DEADLY STAR,
and THE POSSE are still available at the Haunted Bookshop. TO ORDER (and
support an indie bookstore) contact The Haunted Bookshop here: The Haunted Bookshop Angela Trigg, the awesome owner and an award-winning
author in her own right (writing as Angela Quarles) will be happy to ship you
the book(s) of your choice. If you’re in Mobile area, do stop in at the book
store; it’s a neat place to browse. These friendly people make a point to
shelve the books of local authors, and VALENTINE’S DAY PIECES anthology will be
available there soon. If they don’t happen to have any copies of the book you
want, they’ll order it for you.
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