Selling Myself And Other Stories Of My Artistic Promiscuousness – Seton Hill Retreat Day 3, 4, and 5

Friday came. Wow, the was the wrong sentence to start the post. Oh well, Friday, Signing day, while many of my alum friends were off pitching to agents, I was quietly in my own little paranoid world of not only being in public and in a part of the center of attention that was the Seton Hill Writer’s Retreat signing at the local Barnes & Noble, but also knowing few of the other signers that well, or as I thought of it, alone. Those that know me know I’m not a large gathering person. I’m an introvert and incredibly shy around people I don’t know. And I have a mouth that tends to fail at interpreting the speech signals that brain sends to it. This is called a recipe for disaster.

It also didn’t help that when I got there, I felt about three steps behind the whole time. I got there a few minutes to seven, when the signing started. Yet, there were already people getting books signed. Not only that, but Lawrence Connolly had sold out of what B&N got for him and was pulling out the extras he had in his car and Maria Synder was almost sold out…and I didn’t even have my books out yet. So I’m pulling out books, trying to find the change I brought since people had to pay me instead of B&N for them. I’m nervous wreck. Now, in one way I was extremely lucky. I was at the same table as Maria Snyder and Lawrence Connolly, so people were wanting to coming in my general direction. But in a way it was bad too because I was sandwiched between them, so it was easy for people to do the “I never heard about this guy” skip over me from one to the other. So what do I do?

I decide to tryout self-promotion.

It wouldn’t have been too bad if it was, say, my own novel, but it was an anthology. So, I couldn’t sell just my story. The best I would come up with is, “For $10, it’s only a dollar a page.” So I try to sell the anthology as a whole, promoting the other writers, like Jodi Lee and her New Bedlam project (which you all should check out and writers should submit too *poke poke*). And it came to the one girl that I just barraged with a poor sales pitch due to an epic speaking fail, nervousness, and signing virginity. The look in her eyes was all I need to know to just sit, be quite and speak when I was spoken too -_-.

It wasn’t a bad night in the end, I sold 16 copies of TAINTED (5 more would be sold during the rest of the retreat for a total of 21). Almost everybody at the signing sold out or came close to it. And when Mike Arnzen came around, I had the highlight of the signing. Being my mentor I wanted to give him a copy of it, and I was planning to give it for free. But then he asked me, “Do I pay you or the store.” Now, I assumed that since I didn’t mention the price and just handed him a copy he would realize, “Oh, he’s giving me a copy,” and that by asking that question he was thinking, “I should support my former mentee, especially since he has picked almost everyone of my books since LICKER.” So I said he paid me. Well He was also running out of money too and there was a lot of Arnzenian body gesticulations until he used his mock disappointment grumble. Two minutes later, he goes over to Sally Bosco, she gives him a book and he says, “See! She knows how to do this, she gives me the book for free.” In return, I said, “Well I was going to give the book for free, but you asked how to pay for it. I’d be one crazy writer to turn down money.” One of the few times I he could come back with a good retort even though his mind was racing for one, haha!

Saturday was the big, “learning about the business” day for the Retreat goers. I learned some good things, like a better way to approach my book pitch, but I was disconcerted that there was, yet again, a lack of interest in horror by anyone. There were agents saying tey would look at it, possibly take it, but you could tell it was on the low rung of the latter. I decided to skip out on the evening lecture of the guest speakers for the Residency folk, even though it was editors and agents too, because I knew in the back of my mind that horror was going to be the last thing on their mind. And I don’t begrudge them. They want what is selling because the more copies of a book is sold, them more money they make in return, that business, I just wish someone would represent…g-sauce…fo shizzle…ok, I’ll stop, I see you cringing, that’s the job of my books, not my blog posts.

I did start a middle grade horror story…well sort of, yet not really, but I still want a co-author title. Here’s the lowdown. My friend, Lisa Cooper, has an idea for a middle grade horror story and has everything set up to the point where the horror elements really start to take a hold of it. So she asks me if I wouldn’t mind answering some questions to help her figure out the story. What i didn’t realize what that the questions were going to be so broad as to developed the plot and themes of the entire story! But between 15-30 minutes I solve all those problems for her and all she needed was a title for the book and to write it. I think that is Co-author worthy, haha! Now if only i could write in a style that would age appropriate, I wonder if I should go into middle grade and YA fiction. But alas, I like my adult aged ideas too much to.

On my last day, Sunday, there was an alumni meeting to discuss the retreat and plan for next year. And this is where I really did a number on myself. When we got to the part about what was left to collect so that the Alumni Scholarship fund was endowed, I through out the idea that i would be willing to do the leg work and edit (if feasible) and anthology of stories written by WPF alums. Yup, that’s right, I may now have an editing credit to my name in the future. I realized, though, after the meeting, that i just signed up for some major leg work, both on the creative end and the business end. But it is going to be on the back burner till I get back from NECON (and hopefully i will get to talk to some editors of other anthologies to just see what kind of torment I will be putting my soul through in the next year to two years.

And that, my friends, was my videoless trip to the Seton Hill Writer’s Retreat. I hope you all had a few laughs and maybe the people at NECON will be a little more open to wacky videos. Catch you later.

~ by wdprescott on July 9, 2009.