Oklahoma Writer's Federation Conference 2013

I'm quickly learning that signing a contract with a publisher is just the beginning. No longer are there million dollar budgets for promotion unless your name is Janet Evanovich, Stephen King, JK Rowling, James Patterson... Anyway, you get the picture. The majority of presentations I attended in two days were about blogging, tweeting, facebooking (is that a word?), and all the other social media stuff us common people use to promote ourselves. When do I get to write?

Alas, I have my domain name, but no idea what to do with it. I'm completely overwhelmed when I sit down to work on my webpage. As it is, I'm still trying to figure out how to link this blog with my author's page on Facebook. One of the few things I liked about working, was the available IT help when something went wrong. Sure, I could hire someone to do it for me, but that takes money.

I did find the opportunity to talk to my publisher for a few minutes while I was there. He was very supportive and took time to answer my "newbie" questions. like, "How do I distinguish myself from the Nancy Harmon who writes women's christian ministries books?" I'm sure that Nancy wouldn't want to be confused with this Nancy. Women's ministries is a far cry from fantasy.

One of the highlights yesterday was the privilege of hearing the greatest inspirational speech of my life. Jack Dalton was supposed to do a screen-writing class, but... As he said, the spirit moved him to "give us permission" to be, and do, and write what we needed to write. I've never seen an audience so mesmerized for an hour and a half. Some of us shed tears -- at least when we weren't laughing. This made the whole trip worthwhile.