Rast POD Copies Arrived.

I was beginning to doubt the efficiency of Purolator Courier, but the driver rang our doorbell in the nick of time. Two boxes holding some very nice looking copies of Rast, and with no demands for extra payment that I always suffered from UPS.

I have already shown them about and sold four already. I have also given two away...well, my editor certainly deserved one for putting up with my quibbling.

She and her husband put me up at their home just outside Calgary so I could attend the writing conference When Words Collide. Big thanks to Nancy and Doug. Nancy attended as well, so we took turns driving into Calgary.

The conference had a number of interesting presentations—well, most of them looked interesting but not all fitted my present activities. I halved my time, with one half devoted to meeting people and listening to readings. I strongly recommend taking every opportunity to network at writers conferences—most of the information in presentations can be found elsewhere (with one caveat) but meeting people who have more solid credentials than ones self in the business can be priceless.

The caveat? Sometimes panellists in group discussions can let fly a few home-truths in the cut and thrust of disagreement. There were no bitter verbal fights in the presentations I attended, but a few oxen were subtly gored. There were few high priests of literature present, mostly genre writers, and so the pretensions of academia and professional reviewers were taken out and aired.

At the last presentation I went to the panellists discussed promoting the writers’ life and experience on social media...Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ especially. A couple panellists suggested the latter was probably more useful than Facebook, and most of them gave examples of the value of being active on Twitter. I’ll have to try again—I never saw the utility in sending midget messages, but the trick is in the extensions like hashtags and following.

Now I have to plan a book launch for Rast and a few signings and sales. Still no more than silence from EPIC...it’d sure look nice to have award stickers on the front of the copies. Ah well, one can always dream.