“Live” from Edinburgh meaning I’m scheduling this through the weekend so that I won’t have to think about it the coming week and put in the wordcount I didn’t do during the two-days conference. So this is all about 20BooksEdinburgh – the conference, not the writing retreat. I might elaborate on the writing next week. All I can say at this time is that I hit 10K even though Sunday I didn’t write, and I’ll have to finish at home because I need to print out stuff for a scene and I can’t do that here, but I’ll try to write the rest so I only have to put in that one scene when I get home.
Back to the event! π I was familiar with Craig Martelle’s face, since I often saw him with Ramy Vance on the Facebook group livestreams, but I had no idea what the founder of 20BooksTo50K, Michael Anderle looked like. And the guy sitting next to him at registration had only “Michael” on his badge.
BUT, when the actual conference started, I realized who he wasβ¦ Ops. Shame on me! So. kick-off was by him and Craig, and them some best-selling authors from the group, including my “group leader” for the writing retreat, Dakota Krout (who is currently making a mess with other fantasy writers in the hall, since I’m typing outside of the conference room, but I don’t see quieter places with a plug and a comfy sitting right now, haha!).
When the Amazon Ads panel came up, I decided to opt out of it, and found myself in the hall with my new friend Madalina and Michael himself! I was trying to get in some wordcount (since there were no writing sessions during the weekend), but then we started talking, and he asked us what our mountain was, and checked my Amazon profile, and gave some advice andβ¦ what can I say, I’m overwhelmed. Now I can only hope he’ll accept my friendship request on Facebook, LOL!
I know I have a lot of work to do with my rebranding, and that’s why I won’t be publishing much in the three months after the summer. Better covers (or with better typography), better blurbs and maybe new year I can try some ads. Oh, and I’m the BundleRabbit cheerleader, since Michael and Craig talked about collaborations and why to do them. But you already knew that, since I already told you about the curated anthologies – hopefully more will come out after this workshop with all the new friends I’m making! π
I did skip a couple of panels and did an interview with non-fiction author Bradley Charbonneau, who also took lots of awesome author pics, including yours truly. And I’ll meet some of these people in Dublin for Worldcon as well, yay! π I tried to suggest Erika we kidnap Craig for another European 20Books, but we decided to spare him. And in spite of many suggestions (20BooksDublin, 20BooksAmsterdam, 20BooksCroatia), he said no to all of them.
So next opportunity is 20BooksVegas in October, and apparently the 2020 edition will be huge. I’ll see if I have the money and/or inclination to get there next year! π Meanwhile, I got to talk French for a while and heard other non-native accents that were totally endearing and put some faces behind the names on the Facebook group. And of course I made a lot of new friends – we’re in this together even though we’re scattered all around the world…
Friday for the non-writerly Edinburgh experience (although I might start with my total wordcount, since it’s not over yet)! Have a great week! π