It is time for my (very tardy) RT Booklovers’ Recap. 😉 (Sorry for the delay, I’ve been in edit-land!)

First, I just want to say what a pleasure it was to meet so many wonderful people. I had an amazing time with all of the readers, librarians, booksellers, and writers in Chicago.  The book love was running high.  It was great to be surrounded by people who love romance novels just as much as I do.  Thank you to everyone that I met! You made the event so enjoyable.

Some folks have asked me to recap my workshop/spotlight experiences, so here goes…

KENSINGTON SPOTLIGHT

I loved the Kensington spotlight (and not just b/c they are one of my publishers! Even if they weren’t my publisher, this spotlight still rocked). For their spotlight, Kensington demystified the book buying process–and when I say book buying, I’m talking about how their fantastic sales staff actually gets the books inside of the bookstores.  Some points that I learned in this spotlight:

-When a Kensington sales rep approaches the bookstores, she can often pitch/sell a 4 month period of book releases in a matter of hours.

-The rep uses the cover image to help sell books, she gives a strong pitch, and she includes the previous sales history (if any) of the author.

-The rep can ask for stronger distribution in stores that sell a particular sub-genre very well.  Shelf placement can also be asked for at this time (but that space is very sought after, so there’s no guarantee when it comes to the placement).

Then the question came up…What can authors do to help promote their book sales?

The answer…get your book in on time. The sales reps are working MONTHS in advance when they contact the stores. They are selling your book for a particular slot, so you have to get your book in on time. If you don’t, then the entire timeline will be thrown off.

The lovely folks at Kensington also pushed the importance of social media.  We all know how popular Twitter and Facebook are these days, so authors should be using these tools to both interact with their fans and to reach new readers.  An author’s digital presence is very important–that presence can lead to increased sales for an author as her/his audience base expands.

Like I said, I really enjoyed this workshop. It was different–I loved the inside look at the world of the very savvy Kensington sales rep. 😉 And, okay, maybe I am a *little* biased…

SAMHAIN SPOTLIGHT

I had another fun time at the Samhain spotlight. At Samhain, the following genre areas sell the best:

Contemporary (both erotic and non-erotic)

Paranormal Romance

Gay Romance

Contemporary Western Romance

At their spotlight, someone asked if they were gearing up for any big trends. The answer for Samhain?  Trends aren’t as important any longer.  They are dealing with books in the “now” because digital publishing moves so fast.  They feel like there will always be paranormal readers, always be historical readers, etc., and digital publishing allows those readers to easily find the books that they want.

HARLEQUIN SPOTLIGHT

(Yes, full disclosure–this is another one of my publishers.)

The Harlequin editorial team began by revealing some fun figures:

70% of North American women recognize the Harlequin brand.

Harlequin publishes in 150 International markets and their work is translated in 32 languages.

Harlequin sells 4.1 books every second. (In the length of time that it has taken you to read this post, how many books do you think Harlequin has sold?)

Some more info that I learned:

Harlequin is definitely on the look-out for new writers. They want fresh voices. One line that was specifically mentioned as actively looking to acquire–Love Inspired Historicals.

The Harlequin Super Romance line is increasing its word count to 85k.

If you want to write for one of the category lines, then the editorial staff suggested that you reads books in those different lines to see which ones you enjoyed the most. The line that resonates with you will probably be the line that you would enjoy writing.

As for their single titles…generally they have a word count around 100k.  They focus on commercial reads.  They want unpredictable stories from fresh voices.

***

And…that’s  a lot of information. So I think I’ll break my recap into two parts. I’ll be back with that second part tomorrow. 😉 In that recap, I’ll talk about “discoverability”–a big catch phrase from RT. I’ll also talk about hybrid authors (no, they aren’t like my hybrid shifters or hybrid demons, well, not really….) and self-publishing.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2012 at 7:26 am and is filed under Romance. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.