EPICon!

From March 6th until yesterday I spent time in Portland, OR for a series of extraordinarily valuable lectures, ate amazingly good food, and met many terrific people some of whom I had only known of online.

EPIC is an organization I joined recently--this past January--because I was interested in helping to promote the epublishing industry and get some tips as a brand new author just starting out in the field. So far I've been very happy with them, and this conference was a fabulous opportunity to learn new things and have a blast.

Which I did. Lecture highlights included a panel on multi-publishing by Lucy Monroe--who managed to dispel various rumors in regards to NY publishers versus e-publishing and smaller presses in the process, which I greatly appreciated. It is quite nice to know that unlike what I have heard from elsewhere, NY publishers will not disregard an e-book writer. E-books and e-publishing are apparently gaining respect as a legitimate medium within the writing industry, which thrills my geek writer's soul to no end.

From the "I-swear-my-friends-put-her-up-to-this" field came a lecture by Catherine Snodgrass on juggling your free time, family, responsibilities, and writing--and not let your overachiever self force you into major burnout that could negatively impact your writing career. No kidding, the entire lecture could've been tailor-made for me (I even accused her after the lecture of reading my mind!), and any of my friends reading this blog right now I'm sure are literally LOL. I plan to write an entire blog post on this lecture alone--I think that a lot of people could benefit from my thoughts on it and what Catherine had to say on the subject.

There were also some very valuable panels on promotion including one by Penny Sansevieri on Internet publicity--which as far as I am concerned should be a required course for new authors to take. Last but definitely not least, there was an amazingly well put together talk by Raelene Gorlinsky of Ellora's Cave on how to successfully submit manuscripts to publishers.

In short, any writer who wishes to "go pro" and not just be involved as a hobby should join EPIC and attend their yearly conferences if they can. I'm completely serious; the entry fee, plane ticket, and hotel costs were beyond worth it and as far as I'm concerned for what I got for my money, it was cheap.

Some of the fun moments included a trip to Powell's--where I spent WAY more money than I should have on Doctor Who and Torchwood novels (but oh, all of those out of print classic Doctor Who books *squee*), a champagne reception, and an awards ceremony that was filled with good warmth and humor. Anyone could tell from attending these events that the people there not only love what they do, they have fun with it and with their fellow authors. Make no mistake about it--everyone there was professional and truly serious about their art. But they were also friendly, warm, and greeted every new person there like they were a new member of the family.

As a side note, with the exception of the PSU students who attended I was probably the youngest person in attendance at just under thirty years of age. But I'd have to say that everyone there was my age or younger at heart. :)



Love & Magic,
-A