The national revival

I spent last week--well, really the week before last week--in Atlanta at the annual Romance Writers of America convention. I hadn't been in several years and there's nothing like surrounding yourself with positive, smiling people to make you realize you need to get your backside in the chair and rev up that writing career.

I was interested in self-publishing workshops and RWA had managed to get some stellar talent to talk to us and share their experiences: Liliana Hart, Barbara Freethy, Gerri Russell, Bella Andre, and execs of Amazon and Smashwords! Wow!

How to take it all in?

I tried. I came back with a checklist of Things To Do and so far, I've done two of them. And that's only out of 6. I've sought advice from other self-published authors about ebook conversions. I believe I can put that under 'expense'. I want a professional job with my efforts. The last thing I want a reader to do is start the review with a complaint about formatting!

As to whether or not the book makes sense, I've had 10 copies made which I'm going to hand to 10 readers I trust with a red pen. I want my feedback now so perhaps those will be starred reviews and not a bunch of asterisks!

And, in keeping with revving the career, I got a rejection on a story I submitted in March to Woman's World. But that's okay. Four months gone means they thought about it, and I have three more out there.