Earlier this month I attended EPICon2008 in Portland, Oregon. For those not familiar with EPICon, it’s the annual meeting of EPIC, the Electronically Published Internet Connection, an organization of e-book authors and publishers. This is one of my favorite cons, as it is small and intimate, and thus great for networking.
There were some great workshop, but I’ll only mention a few. Two of the best were given by publicist Penny Sansivieri, of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. The compnay specializes in internet marketing. She spoke on “Red Hot Web Tricks” and “Red Hot Internet Publicity”. Among other things, she recommended that bloggers put their blog on their website, so hits are credited to your site rather than Blogger.com or WordPress or whoever, and to update the blog at least once a week. More often is better. She also said blog commenting is a powerful tool (hint, hint). Posts should be relative to your interests and include a link back to your site. She also said an email newsletter is “83% more effective than any other promo”. Guess I’d better start doing that more frequently! Author Marketing Experts has a free newsletter you can subscribe to with more promotional hints. Their website is AMarketingExpert.com.
The Paranormal Panel: Bigfoot Has Feelings Too! was chaired by author Murdoch Hughes, complete with werewolf mask. I didn’t have my camera with me, but author Debbie Fritter did and sent me this photo. Murdoch’s latest mystery, The Seattle Barista Killer, features a vegan werewolf as sleuth. Other panelists were Frances Evlin, Michelle Levigne and Brenna Lyons.
Caitlyn Willows, aka our own Catherine Snodgrass, gave an excellent and frank talk on How to Research Erotica. She pointed out that “graphic language alone doesn’t make erotica”. Your story should be about the full experience of body and emotions, anticipation and fulfillment”. She suggested considering a subscription to Playboy or Playgirl, as well as investing in a good book (or two or three) on human sexuality.
One Saturday morning, author Adrianna Dane and I did a talk on Author As Producer: How To Create Your Own Book Trailers on a Budget. I’m happy to report that the talk went well and we had a lot of positive feedback afterwards. I had blogged about this topic a few days before and I received a comment on the post from Sheila Clover English about her new ebook, The Book Trailer Revolution: Book Marketing and Promotion Through Digital Video. It’s free as a download from Circle of Seven.
Saturday evening was the EPPIE Banquet, preceeded by a champagne reception sponsored by All Romance eBooks. Here’s a photo of me and Janet Cornelow Quinn taken with author and cover artist Skylar Sinclair at the reception. Dinner was filet mignon and salmon, and the hotel kitchen outdid themselves. Catherine, w/a Caitlyn Willows, and I were both EPPIE finalists, but alas, neither of us won in our respective categories. Maybe next time.
What’s your favorite conference?
Linda Mac / Lyndi Lamont
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Thankz for the great wrap-up, Linda. Very well done!!
I’ve only been to RWA conferences, but hope to go to RT someday. You’re going to RWA San Francisco, correct? Looking forward to seeing you there.
And thank you so much for the excellent reference from Circle of Seven Productions. I’ll be sure to mention them in the workshop re: video blogging I’m doing with Fronnie Lewis at RWA 2008 on Sat. August 2nd at 11 am.
See you soon,
Jina
Wow, Linda, this was a terrific report about the conference. I loved all of it!