Thank
you to Nancy my wonderful boss, the owner – publisher of Melange Books for
letting me share her experiences of the 2013 Romantic Times Convention.
Well, I've been home about 5 days since RT
Convention and its time to report my findings.
On our day of arrival it was snowing. As a matter of fact, it rained and snowed the 8 hour drive down there. Does anyone know how depressing that is when you come from Minnesota and hope to hit some warm, sunny weather down south? But the rain and snow didn't put a damper on our good time!
It took us awhile to get signed in and pick up our badges, etc. that would allow us entry into all of the convention workshops, business workshops, etc. then we scoped out the Sheraton at Crown Center.
This place is HUGE! It took me 2 days to figure out where in the heck I was going because the workshops were on either side of this huge atrium-which is their lobby area. But also, the elevators only seemed to service certain areas. There were only 4 main elevators and it seemed they weren't enough for the crowd. Though I have to admit that this convention wasn't anywhere near as crowded as the Romance Writers of America conferences I've attended.
A bit of a disappointment was that after eagle-eying peoples' name badges to find readers, I realized most everyone there was an author, editor or publisher! I thought, what the heck! This is supposed to be a reader convention. This was finally proved on Saturday, the day before the convention ended when they hosted a one-day pass for readers - most of them were readers of young adult books. But truly, I was surprised from Wed - Sat I saw very few reader badges.
We (Denise, my ya editor and I) attended some business workshops like information about Amazon and other vendors. We also heard a dynamic writer-speaker, Bob Mayer. He used to write with author Jennifer Crusie but has since started his own business offering contracts on backlists to authors. His business seems to be successful.
We had a table with a melange display set up and the postcards and pen-combination we had for some books and our brochure and business card magnets we replenished several times.
Then Denise and I participated in 'pitch-a-palooza' which is a crazy event. Authors have 3 minutes to 'pitch a book' to editors, publishers. I think we saw about 12 people in a very short amount of time. I can't remember a single story pitch at the moment-some were very unusual but we requested several of them.
Basically, Denise and I promoted Melange and Ice wherever we went. In the center atrium there are several table and chair combinations where we could plug in our computers and work-network if we wanted to and check email. It seemed when we did that we ended up conversing with others at the table, which was a great way to promote Melange as well.
I enjoyed meeting for the first time Melange authors, Jaden Sinclair, Jody Vitek and Ruth Hartman! Glad to finally meet all of you. The highlight of the event (Believe me when I say I'm being facetious) was standing in line for 1-1/2 hours for Caroline, my daughter, who is head of our art department, and happens to be a huge ya fan of Richelle Mead (author of the Vampire Academy series) to end up not getting the books Caroline requested me to buy and have the author sign! I didn't leave empty-handed though but walked out with Mead's new first book in the series, with her signature to Caroline. The young adult authors were all situated in what they called YA Alley and it was astonishingly full. Readers seem to love YA books.
I tipped more than a few appletinis while I was there in the very handy bar situated in the hotel and enjoyed every moment of the conference. Denise and I promoted Melange and that was our focus so we didn't attend many of the crazy evening parties. I encourage you to check out all of the pix about RT at their website, www.romantictimes.com. Enjoy!
Nancy
On our day of arrival it was snowing. As a matter of fact, it rained and snowed the 8 hour drive down there. Does anyone know how depressing that is when you come from Minnesota and hope to hit some warm, sunny weather down south? But the rain and snow didn't put a damper on our good time!
It took us awhile to get signed in and pick up our badges, etc. that would allow us entry into all of the convention workshops, business workshops, etc. then we scoped out the Sheraton at Crown Center.
This place is HUGE! It took me 2 days to figure out where in the heck I was going because the workshops were on either side of this huge atrium-which is their lobby area. But also, the elevators only seemed to service certain areas. There were only 4 main elevators and it seemed they weren't enough for the crowd. Though I have to admit that this convention wasn't anywhere near as crowded as the Romance Writers of America conferences I've attended.
A bit of a disappointment was that after eagle-eying peoples' name badges to find readers, I realized most everyone there was an author, editor or publisher! I thought, what the heck! This is supposed to be a reader convention. This was finally proved on Saturday, the day before the convention ended when they hosted a one-day pass for readers - most of them were readers of young adult books. But truly, I was surprised from Wed - Sat I saw very few reader badges.
We (Denise, my ya editor and I) attended some business workshops like information about Amazon and other vendors. We also heard a dynamic writer-speaker, Bob Mayer. He used to write with author Jennifer Crusie but has since started his own business offering contracts on backlists to authors. His business seems to be successful.
We had a table with a melange display set up and the postcards and pen-combination we had for some books and our brochure and business card magnets we replenished several times.
Then Denise and I participated in 'pitch-a-palooza' which is a crazy event. Authors have 3 minutes to 'pitch a book' to editors, publishers. I think we saw about 12 people in a very short amount of time. I can't remember a single story pitch at the moment-some were very unusual but we requested several of them.
Basically, Denise and I promoted Melange and Ice wherever we went. In the center atrium there are several table and chair combinations where we could plug in our computers and work-network if we wanted to and check email. It seemed when we did that we ended up conversing with others at the table, which was a great way to promote Melange as well.
I enjoyed meeting for the first time Melange authors, Jaden Sinclair, Jody Vitek and Ruth Hartman! Glad to finally meet all of you. The highlight of the event (Believe me when I say I'm being facetious) was standing in line for 1-1/2 hours for Caroline, my daughter, who is head of our art department, and happens to be a huge ya fan of Richelle Mead (author of the Vampire Academy series) to end up not getting the books Caroline requested me to buy and have the author sign! I didn't leave empty-handed though but walked out with Mead's new first book in the series, with her signature to Caroline. The young adult authors were all situated in what they called YA Alley and it was astonishingly full. Readers seem to love YA books.
I tipped more than a few appletinis while I was there in the very handy bar situated in the hotel and enjoyed every moment of the conference. Denise and I promoted Melange and that was our focus so we didn't attend many of the crazy evening parties. I encourage you to check out all of the pix about RT at their website, www.romantictimes.com. Enjoy!
Nancy
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