You Don't Know Until You Know

[lovelylj]

April was the last book fair that I attended. I was there to help my father promote his novel Escape 2 Earth. It was more of an entertainment event than it was a book festival. We had so many people who came by who didn't get science fiction or didn't like it. That boggles my mind, people who don't like scifi, but to each their own.

But these past three weeks have been exciting to say the least. Things started of a little slow going to Baltimore, but things really picked up in Collingswood, NJ and I learned so much more about publishing and getting your work out there from Miranda and Rob Walker's panel. I think Largo, MD, Collingswood, NJ and Charleston, WV have some of the nicest people I've ever met.

I'm not a major mystery person. I like my mystery like on the side, I usually have a big story going on and while people are being rescued there's this mystery going on of "how did this start?" or "who started it?" kind of crime going on.

I learned a few things. I wanted to share.
1. Kindle
Escape 2 Earth is already on Kindle but (don't ask me why) but it didn't occur to me to put other works on Kindle. I need to find a way to market to the Kindle crowd.

But while I'm making some kind of a leadway with Kindle I can shop my query letter around to the literary agents or publishers for a larger distribution.

2. Small press Publishers
You don't need a literary agent and the small press publisher works closely with the author, which is a good thing.

3. Use every online resource that you could, I have a list that I intend to use as much as I can to learn whatever I can.

4. That there's other options rather than self-publishing. And I'm going to find ways to use them all.

I have a good to-do list coming up

1. Re-read my paranormal short story mystery. I'm going to have it looked at by someone who's going to rip it apart. I'm happy because it'll make the story better, but I'm afriad, lol, I don't want to be told it's horrible and not worth using.

2. Wrap up the short story that I have for my science fiction short story. The alien Deltorian warriors are trapped on Mars, they've been made to look human and now they have to save the humans who were abducted by the Martians.

3. Re-read my manuscript myself, because I know that has errors in it and possible points of confusion. I think there may be a name debate that I need to reconcile. It's easy to work out in my head annoying on the computer screen. I may print the whole thing and go from there. The whole thing is finished, beginning, middle and end, but it's not finished to my standards.


Well, that's how I work. I aim high and by the end of the week I've gotten 75% of what I wanted done and the weekend to finish the other 15%.

This weekend was a busy, fun, informative weekend.