Blogging All About It

[Draven Ames]

I'm hoping to be able to afford going to Killer Con this year. Should be fun.

[Thad Linson]

Very cool guys! If anyone ever decides to go to Necon let me know, I've thought about going as it's not that far away from here. Plus I've been meaning to bug Brian and Rich about having a booth at it again.

I'm going this year. I can't wait for it.

[Dan Hocker]

I'm going this year. I can't wait for it.

Very cool. I won't be able to this year, but I'm hoping next year to get CD to have a booth there. I also wanna talk Rich and Brian into doing a CD booth at the Baltimore Comic-Con

[ozmosis7]

I keep hoping for lightning to strike (as in my wallet magically fills) and then I'll be able to go to all of these LOL. I may end up at the Baltimore Lit fest and/or Horror Realm in Sept though. I was supposed to go to one in Kentucky to talk with a director, but I couldn't swing that one with my fridge, shower, and couch all blowing up at once.

[KT Wagner]

I've attended SIWC for the last decade. Jay Clarke/Micheal Slade is a regular. This year I have a blue pencil app't with Robert McCammon (!!)

In August, I'll be at the Willamette writers conference. In late September VCon.

Is anyone else attending any of these?

[RichardThomas]

haven't been to WHC or Necon, might hit Bouchercon in St. Louis later this year - you're all welcome to come to Chicago for AWP next year (probably too literary for most)

[RJHubbard53]

Gah, you all are depressing me talking about your finances or lacktherof. I would really like to be a writer, just as much as i wanted to be an archaeologist - they have something in common - neither seem to be financially lucrative unless you're King, Koontz, Stein, or Brown. I like my boat, ipads, TVs, cars, vacations, and delicious food. I don't really want to go back to milk and kidney beans. Perhaps its better to write as a hobby; If I had to really depend on it, it wouldn't be any fun...

Back on topic, I plan to make it to neon one of these days; seems fun

[ozmosis7]

Gah, you all are depressing me talking about your finances or lacktherof.

There are many writers out there able to make a living out of it. You just need a little luck to get there...and some talent I'd reckon . But it can be had. One of the most valuable things I have learned along my path is that colleagues are colleagues, so you shouldn't expect them to become fans. If they become a fan, that is fabulous, but they are more likely to be supportive of your initial struggle at least, as you should theirs. If you focus on the group that truly comprises a fan base I think you'll be better off in the long run. That base of people is much harder to round up though. The Cons are a great place to start though.

[Dan Hocker]

I'm no writer, but with my few experiences in the field. The biggest key to making a living at writing, is learning to write what sells. Sadly what sells is not always what everyone wants to write. Also, what sells can be very hard in the horror field, especially if you are trying to sell your stuff to the New York publishers. They are harsh critics, that don't buy a lot of horror.

[RJHubbard53]

ah i get it! So what Dan's saying is that i need to write a story about Preston Picadilly, a kid wizard while on a Vatican fieldtrip, encounters an albino medium who tells him about some evil of the Catholic Church invovling universe-hopping gunslingers and an insightful golden retriever... is that right, Dan?

[peteOcha]

ah i get it! So what Dan's saying is that i need to write a story about Preston Picadilly, a kid wizard while on a Vatican fieldtrip, encounters an albino medium who tells him about some evil of the Catholic Church invovling universe-hopping gunslingers and an insightful golden retriever... is that right, Dan?

Actually... You could be on to something there...

[RichardThomas]

I'm no writer, but with my few experiences in the field. The biggest key to making a living at writing, is learning to write what sells. Sadly what sells is not always what everyone wants to write. Also, what sells can be very hard in the horror field, especially if you are trying to sell your stuff to the New York publishers. They are harsh critics, that don't buy a lot of horror.

well, kind of true - if you look at the NYT bestseller lists, who is on there? horror, fantasy, SF, mystery, romance and YA - there is SOME literary fiction, but most of it doesn't sell really well compared to the genre fiction writers

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...m-the-top.html

take the link above (some of these i'm guessing on genres or using broad strokes)
- you've got dan brown (thriller), john grisham (legal thrillers), stephen king (horror/thrillers), james patterson (mystery), janet evanovich (mystery), stephanie meyer (horror)

cornwell, crichton, grafton - if anything we should be learning to write mysteries

that's partly why i'm trying to diversify - i write horror, noir/neo-noir, crime, thrillers, fantasy, SF, and literary - the only genres i don't write are romance and YA, really

new york is funny, they love literary fiction, but it's not the best selling genre at ALL - some of the big names (again) do well, Franzen just had Freedom out - believe me, as i get my MFA i'm sending work out to both literary journals that most of you have probably never heard of, but i'm also hitting the big names in horror and noir

if you write dark, sometimes a little tweak in one direction can change what genre or sub-genre they put you in

[Dan Hocker]

I wasn't necessarily referring to "literary fiction". Mostly just referring to horror in general. It's a very tough field when it comes to the NY publishers, in general there are a lot more writers that make a living at it, in the other genre's than there are in the horror genre, and that's because horror is a tough genre to sell. I forget how Brian put it to me awhile ago, but basically what he was saying is that NY publishers don't really care a lot about the horror genre, but the small press is the champion of it.

[RichardThomas]

I wasn't necessarily referring to "literary fiction". Mostly just referring to horror in general. It's a very tough field when it comes to the NY publishers, in general there are a lot more writers that make a living at it, in the other genre's than there are in the horror genre, and that's because horror is a tough genre to sell. I forget how Brian put it to me awhile ago, but basically what he was saying is that NY publishers don't really care a lot about the horror genre, but the small press is the champion of it.

true, horror does have trouble in NYC unless you're named King or Straub or Koontz - small presses, thank god for them

[onipar]

true, horror does have trouble in NYC unless you're named King or Straub or Koontz - small presses, thank god for them

True. If it wasn't for Bad Moon Books, I'm not sure my first novel would have ever seen light. It's a bit too...different.

On topic, I add new blog posts all the time. My current post is just some humor related to "blog awards." I'm also trying to start a new segment called "Ask the Professor" in which readers send me writing related questions, and I may even answer them in between the insults and sarcasm. Another segment I do is something called "Sunshine Says." It's basically a picture of a human skull (Sunshine) with a funny one-liner. Sometimes I use Zed (a stuffed Zombie).