Spring Conference Time is Near

Seeing the announcement of the NCWN Spring Conference created an excitement in me to go to this gathering of successful writers and poets. I want the inspiration and motivation I always receive when I am with writers. 

Ed Southern at City Lights Books. Photo by Barry Beall

I like to learn and I can tell there is much I could learn here. One of the things most of us need is the sessions by Ed Southern and his wife, Jamie, both knowledgeable about the book business. That is what we have if we make an effort to publish our writing, a business we need to work at just as we work at our writing. 

At times our book business takes too much of our time, or it seems to. We want to spend our time writing, not building a platform or reputation with readers, or getting our books into book stores, checking on their sales and even picking up books that are not selling. I was told that many writers, enthusiastic about their new novels, travel far and wide to sell book store owners on the idea of carrying their books. But, book store owners say often authors never come back. They never even contact the book stores. 

When our local book store closed the owner said she had contacted all the local authors whose books she carried, but very few came back to get their books. I ended up with many of them because I was asked to take them. Elizabeth didn't want to just throw away the books, so I give them as door prizes in our writing groups or donate them to Friends of the Library book store. 

The book business is important to learn. I want to attend Ed and Jamie's sessions. If anyone in WNC or north Georgia wants to go to Greensboro to the Spring Conference, I would like to have a companion for the trip.