C3 Conference – Book ‘em

There is no “how to give a literary conference” kit.  So I’m building one.

Next year’s Creatures, Crimes and Creativity conference will give avid readers a chance to mix and mingle with some favorite writers and meet some new authors they’ll want to get to know.  Many of those fans will want to pick up books by those writers while they can get the books autographed.  That means the C3 Con has to have its own bookstore.

Some conferences have volunteer staff run an onsite bookstore.  While that can work, it has its limits.  Authors have to bring their own books, whereas many published authors don’t keep books because bookstores usually just order from a distributor.  You need several dedicated volunteers to make a bookstore run.  And someone has to handle cash and figure out how to take credit cards.

We decided to let a professional handle the book sales at the C3 Con.  In addition to the reasons above we wanted to support a Maryland-based, privately owned bookstore.  We considered several, but it didn’t take long to narrow the choice down to Mystery Loves Company in Oxford MD.

As their name implies, Mystery Loves Company is well versed in handling genre fiction.  Aside from that, Kathy and her staff have a long history of showcasing local authors (including this one) with book signings and other events.  Plus, they have extensive experience working outside their own store.  Mystery Loves Company handles the book sales at the Bay to Ocean writer’s conference and the Malice Domestic mystery convention, not to mention the monthly Mystery Writers of America meetings.

The good news for us is that we will only need for one volunteer to deal with the bookstore.  Romantic suspense author Deliah Lawrence has volunteered to interface with all the authors who register for the conference.  She will get their book titles and ISBN numbers and feed those to Kathy at Mystery Loves Company so she can order them.  Published authors who don’t have distribution will bring books to the conference, where Kathy will log them in and add them to the display for sale. 

We want every author who registers for the conference to have their books available there.  Fans can get to know the writers, hear them speak on a panel or two, and have extra insight into that autographed book they take home.

What ELSE Not To Do In Your Novel

Last week I talked about some things fiction writers should NOT do if they want to see their work published.  Since then several fellow authors have mentioned some other crimes that writers need to avoid, enough to warrant a follow-up blog.  For example…

Don’t write a classic.  Thomas Hardy’s “Return of the Native” opens with an entire chapter describing the setting.  That may have made readers swoon in the 1870s but it will simply put today’s readers to sleep.  Keep your book focused on the story, and give us no more detail in setting or background than we really need.  The easiest way to avoid being wordy is to seek out and delete all adverbs and most adjectives.  Nouns and verbs make the story.  

The only thing worse than being overly wordy is being overly scholarly, especially in your dialog.  Atlas Shrugged was a big hit in the 1950s, but you won’t be able to sell a manuscript with a 70 page monolog today.  Dialog needs to imitate the way people converse, and none of us is going to let our friend go on for even a fraction of that time without chiming in.  Also, dialog doesn’t need to follow the same rules of grammar your prose sticks to.  People speak in fragments, use contractions, and sometimes just misuse words.

In the same vein, don’t focus too much on detail in general.  Tom Clancy is a very successful writer, but he had brought any of his manuscripts to Intrigue Publishing we would have passed unless he cut about a quarter of the book.  We just don’t think our readers need to know much more about a particular weapons system than its name and what it can do.  The same applies to day-to-day activities.  Unless something exciting happens during the trip I don’t really need to see our hero sitting in his car going from here to there.  We will assume that your characters do brush their teeth, shower, go to the bathroom, get dressed, etc.  Unless something happens that moves the plot forward or deepens characterization, let it all happen off camera.

Don’t make me work to follow your story.  I’m not against flashbacks, but non-linear storytelling (the TV show Lost comes to mind) will prompt me to put the book down.  Flashing forward and back is not necessary if you have a good story anyway.  Using literary techniques just to show off does not impress me, or most acquisition editors.  The last writer I read who I thought got away with being cute with a story was O. Henry.

If you have more ideas for things that writers should NOT do if they want to get published, share with us!

The Key to the Keynotes

If you decide to produce a mystery conference you want to get a big-name mystery author to give a keynote speech.  That name lends credibility to your project and attracts fans who want a chance to get up close and personal with the master.  But what if you’re giving a mystery-suspense-thriller-horror-science fiction-fantasy-steampunk conference like our own Creatures, Crimes & Creativity Con?  Well, to draw those various fans you better have broader big name representation.  How do you do that?

Well, here’s what not to do.  Don’t write to the publicists, managers, editors or agents of your favorite writers.  Those folks are in the business of getting lucrative gigs for their authors.  One vampire-writing Southern belle gets more for a speaking engagement than our entire conference budget!  Even local mystery bestseller Laura Lippman gets $5K to appear.  (To be fair, Ms Lippman does donate every penny of that to the Enoch Pratt Free Library, a marvelous way for an author to give back.)

You get those big names to your conference by being part of the writing community so you can ask them personally.  Jeffrey Deaver has put so many thrillers and mysteries on the New York Times bestseller list that he could almost name his price to appear at a conference.  Even if you’ve never read a mystery you probably know who his sleuth Lincoln Rhyme is or have at least seen The Bone Collector, one of his novels that made the jump to the big screen.  But when I asked him, at a Mystery Writers of America meeting, if he’d be willing to headline our new conference he checked his PDA and said, “Sure, I’m free.”

Similarly, our local guests of honor are people we know beyond their writing.  I’ve met John Gilstrap, another New York Times bestselling thriller writer, at several writers’ club functions.  He gives classes in the area and works with local writers whenever he can spare the time.  John always supports other authors and he quickly agreed to attend the C3 conference.

Urban drama author Sandra Bowman is a master (mistress?) of networking.  She knows all the local writers worth knowing and met bestselling romantic suspense author Trice Hickman on Facebook.  When Trice learned of our planned conference she was the first to offer her talents and marquee name to the cause.  She, like Gilstrap, will be interviewed at the conference and will give a seminar on writing and getting published.

Our second keynote speaker, New York Times bestselling horror and science fiction writer Christopher Golden was NOT a personal friend.  However, Golden is a longtime friend of a longtime friend of mine, Meloney Crawford.  When Meloney was a comic book editor she gave Golden one of his first breaks as a writer.  When she reached out to him for me, he was happy to come on board.

Networking and professional friendships are the secret to getting great celebrity guests for a conference.  And I think we have some real shining stars for the C3 Conference.

Conference Planning: Location, Location, Location

 Last week I told you that we here at Intrigue Publishing will launch a new conference for writers and fans next year.  Once we decided to hold the Creatures, Crimes & Creativity (C3) conference the next decision we had to make was where to put it.

We wanted our con to draw readers and writers of the chosen genres from the entire DMV – The District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.  We also wanted it to be easily accessible for people coming in from farther away.  And we wanted to keep costs down.  The less expensive the venue, the less we would have to charge for registration.  But we had absolute minimum space requirements.  We needed enough rooms to have three panels going on at one time, plus spaces for a bookstore, registration, an author roundtable and special events.  The hunt was on.

A cost comparison quickly ruled out any venue in DC.  Several places in Northern Virginia were in contention, especially in Arlington where Malice Domestic was held for several year, in easy reach of Reagan National Airport.  Then we looked at some promising places near Baltimore Washington International Airport. 

We found what we were looking for just north of Baltimore.  The Marriott Hunt Valley had the space we were looking for at a reasonable price.  It is an easy train ride from BWI Airport.  Plus, the folks there have valuable experience.  For years they’ve hosted Balticon, one of the better known science fiction gatherings.  They know how to do this con thing, and how to handle the special kind of people we call fans.  And did I mention that they offered us a really nice discounted rate for attendee’s hotel rooms?  We met with them and ran through all the details with smiles on both sides of the table.

The next decision was about food.  At some cons the visitors are on their own for dining.  At others meals are included.  We decided to follow the Love Is Murder pattern and include as many meals as possible in the registration price.  This would prompt people to stay in the hotel and network when they weren’t watching a panel.  We arranged to have Friday’s dinner, all three meals Saturday and Sunday’s breakfast be part of the package.  And since the panelists will all be there, fans will be able to sit at a table with their favorite writers, or maybe with new authors they just met.         

Of course, there are a lot of other details involved in putting a con together.  I’ll talk about more of them next week.