WHC2011 - Ade's review
“Creating stories is the easy part. After that, writing is a business.” That can be found on the biography of our leader, DM Youngquist. I first made his acquaintance on the DF Underground and worked with him on the
Underground Rising collaboration. I was relatively new to the writing game (still am!) so I thought that was a strange comment. After all, writing isn’t easy: no matter how much we enjoy it – or feel driven to do it – we know it’s bloody hard work. How dare someone say that the mere writing is the easy part?
Well, we all know now that we writers have to perform the roles that were previously performed by the publishers. Publicity, marketing, promotion, signings, book discounts, sending ARCs out to reviewers and bloggers…and of course, launches. It was this weekend that the true meaning of Dave’s words of wisdom hit me.
A year ago I attended my first WHC in Brighton, UK, trying to pitch my novel manuscript. That was hard enough – but less than a year later, I was in the USA for the first time. Not to find a publisher. This time I was here to launch, promote and sell the completed project – and the twelve other titles that Dark Continents Publishing were releasing at WHC.
The first time I’ve been behind a dealer’s table. It was pretty nerve-wracking, to be honest. I’m glad I made sure I read all the books beforehand to ensure that I was fully genned up on them to deal with any questions that potential customers asked. This was where I learned the post-production business side of publishing – I wasn’t there to promote just my own book, but those of the other authors within our co-op. In some ways that made it easier, because I could be seen to be more objective. Less ‘buy my book, it’s great, honest, guv’ and more ‘’buy our books, they’re great, honest, guv…’
Not blowing our own trumpet, but we had a pretty spectacular booth – probably the most eye-catching one there - and full credit to John Prescott for this. Outstanding work, and it shows how long he’s been working in the industry because this style of booth was used in the days when he worked for White Silver Publishing. We were fortunate that we were in the main Dealer Room, as our booth was the first thing that caught the eyes upon entry – it wouldn’t have had the same effect if we were in the overflow room! (Sorry, Dealer Room 2.)
The only drawback to having such a massive line of books was finding room for everything on the table – but I managed to squeeze in some English chocolate as a sneaky sales tactic…
Thursday was a bit hair-raising, to be honest. We’d already been aware that our editor in chief and so-talented-she’s-scary writer and all-round superstar Serenity J Banks wouldn’t be with us due to family circumstances: but then we learned that Sylvia Schults was having transport difficulties and might not be able to attend.
Her cancelled train was replaced with a coach that saw the hapless lady stuck on the road for thirty six hours – and yet she managed to get to Austin at 10.00 p.m on the dot, just in time for her reading from
Taming of the Werewolf. One of the best readings I’ve come across, she really put energy and drive into her delivery; afterwards she said it was because she was so hyped up from the stress of the journey, but I believe it was down to her natural talent and ability as a storyteller.
So there were five of the core group in the same geographical area for the first time: Dave Youngquist, John Prescott, Sylvia Schults, myself…and Tracie McBride, who flew in from Australia for the occasion. (Me, Dave and John went to pick her up from the airport, with a piece of A1 sized cardboard with her name on it. And a picture of a kangaroo. And as if that wasn’t enough, I wobbled it Rolf Harris style and got a pretty good rhythm going. She took one look at this trio of nutters waiting for us and tried to run away…)
I’ve said before that the group feels more like a bunch of friends than business partners. After the weekend it felt more like a second family.
You know people much better when you work with them. And my God, we worked. Tracie came up with a rota to ensure that our booth was manned by two people at all times while others went off to the panel discussions and author readings they’d expressed interest in. It’s a testament to my fellow board members that not once did we get on each other’s nerves, not once did we snap and bite or get arsy with each other. The schmoozing side of it I’m not good at – perhaps it’s my British reticence that prevents me going up to folk and saying ‘hi, how are you?’ and then introducing myself and promoting my wares. Dave was brilliant at this, a natural salesman. Very relaxed and self-assured without being pushy, he was a perfect ambassador for the team, and I hope he makes it over to Blighty for FCon this September.
The launch party was the ultimate test – and a total success. We’d chartered a boat to take a cruise along the Colorado River and the Town Lake to see the Mexican free-tailed bat colony flying from Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk, along with free booze, food and cake for our attending guests. Due to an admin SNAFU our launch party wasn’t advertised in the WHC programme, so many folk didn’t know we were having one! Our other major task that weekend was spreading the word. Last minute emergencies with the transportation and catering were resolved admirably by our ladies, most notably Dave’s wife Fay and my sister Bev, and John Prescott did sterling work with his chauffeur service.
We had over thirty people in attendance, including guests of honour Steve '30 Days Of Night' Niles and Del Howison. Everyone had a great time, and one of our special guests was overheard saying ‘Damn, it’s great to be out of that hotel.’
That made me wonder about what it must be like for the famous writers at WHC. It’s hard enough work for those of us breaking into the industry, getting our names and products noticed – but I wondered how hard it was for the stars being pestered for autographs, requests for photos and advice…and attending panels.
Ah, panels. One of the reasons these conventions are essential for new writers and publishing firms. The chance to hear first hand the experience of industry professionals and gain some useful knowledge. After all, the industry is changing so much, and the meltdown of Leisure has changed the goalposts even further. What better way to gain an insight than to listen to the experts…
Well, some were useful, others less so. But most of the ones I attended, I came away with the feeling ‘we already knew this’ which as Tracie McBride said is a good thing because it means we’re on the right track.
W
hat The Hell Happened in the 2000s?
9:00 PM Thursday
Monica O’Rourke, C. Mellick III, Brett Savory, F. Paul Wilson, Vincent Chong, John Everson (M), Gene O’Neill
Horror boomed in the 1980s, and busted in the 1990s. How will the years 2000-2010 be remembered? Did the Internet save the day, or did ebooks ruin everything? Has horror become a subgenre of romance? Are those signed/limited editions actually going to be worth anything some day? Our panelists have lived through the 2000s, and they have stories to share.
This I found very disappointing. There seemed to be little discussion as to why readers’ tastes shifted in this period or why horror is making a comeback in the mainstream now. I always thought it was down to the explosion in crime/procedural in the 1990s that made the supernatural monster redundant: nothing’s scarier than the human monster. And I was surprised that no-one commented on the desire for a return to fantastical horror in the midst of a recession, because that’s when the last boom period in horror was. Instead, it meandered into a discussion on eBooks and self-publishing and never left. Having said that, it was a treat to hear F Paul Wilson make some very valid and logical points on the subject.
The panel on how much money to be made in the field I missed because it was time for Ms Schults’ reading.
Friday morning kicked off with
Why Write Short Stories?
Joe Hill, Suzanne Church, Orrin Grey, Claude Lalumière, Molly Tanzer (M), Brad Sinor
Eighty years ago, the pulp magazines had millions of readers, and paid one to five cents a word for short fiction. Today, the magazines have thousands of readers at best and…still pay one to five cents a word. Why bother writing what almost nobody reads and what the marketplace has declared is worth virtually nothing?
This was great. The general consensus is that short stories are still essential to writers; firstly, as the best way to learn the craft, and secondly as the best place to build an audience. Ebooks are an excellent way of developing this market, everyone agreed – although the magazines seem to be on their knees (with the exception of the likes of Black Static and Cemetery Dance) money and audiences can still be created with stories released onto Kindle and Nook. With our MTV attention span culture, and fickle readers, a short released digitally (and promoted properly) can be an excellent way to gain new fans.
The afternoon saw a reading from Gary McMahon and SG Browne, who shared space in the Dark Arts anthology
Swallowed By The Cracks. Good stuff, but I was disappointed that many left after Gary’s reading. Not only did I see that as bloody rude, they missed a treat with SG Browne. One of his readings was ‘Zombie Gigolo’, a gross-out horror comedy tale that described in gloriously disgusting detail the bedside duties of a man who pleasures lonely ladies of the living dead persuasion for a living. It was revolting and hilarious, and SG Browne read it superbly.
I
t Was a Dark and Stormy Night
3:00 PM Friday
Sandra Kasturi (M), Steve Niles, Ben Kane Ethridge, John Mantooth, Weston Ochse
Elmore Leonard’s rules for writing begin with an absolute: “Never open a book with weather.” But the weather can be important for setting mood, establishing location, and in some stories can even be a major part of the plot. How is weather best handled in fiction, and what clichés must be avoided? Must it always rain at a funeral?
I missed this one – and it sounded great. Anyone who attended, please let me know what happened!
And then, of course, it was time for our BatCruise!
Finished at half-ten, so decided to make out way to the Chi-Zine party, and we brought some left over booze with us.
Didn’t stay long. Having 100+ people crammed into one hotel room (hospitality suite, the Doubletree Hotel cheekily called it) didn’t make for a comfortable experience. Still, met some nice people, there was free food and lots of famous folk.
Saturday, nursing a hangover and then at 11 a.m. one of my favourite panels of the whole weekend:
I’ll Kill You With My Bare Hands! (Well, Maybe a Gun…)
Brian Keene, Joe Lansdale (M), Wrath James White, Hank Schwaeble, Lincoln Crisler, Sandra Wickham, Adam Coats
Violence is easy, but writing violence is difficult. Hear from martial artists, gun aficionados, and combat veterans on how to get the blood, guts, and fistfights correct.
Oh my, was this a treat. I know very little of Joe Lansdale, or the martial art he invented. He was a real pleasure to listen to, as was the fantastically named Wrath James White, a twelve foot tall black writer who was a professional doorman in Philadelphia for eight years. Some of the discussion rubbished the nonsense portrayal of violence and gunplay represented on TV and cinema, but most of it focussed on hand-to-hand fighting, with some useful tips on what to do and what not to do if you find yourself in a street fighting situation. Joe Lansdale said he’d be more concerned about fighting someone with a knife than a gun – incidentally, if someone comes at you with a knife and you’re unarmed, the advice? RUN!
The End of Good Advice
1:00 PM
Mikal Trimm, Ian Rogers (M), Vanessa Fewings, Peter Straub, Gord Rollo, Wayne Allen Sallee
In the old days, there were a few solid ways to build a career—get some attention with short stories, or get an agent and sell a novel to New York. But good advice often has an expiration date, especially in the rapidly changing publishing field of the Internet era. What good old advice still works, and what new advice do the old pros not even know?
Peter Straub rocks. That is all. Not the most useful of panels but interesting nonetheless in that it shows how the ‘old guard’ view the publishing world. The general consensus is not to even think about using Smashwords unless you’re an established author, which I personally think the jury’s still out on…and I did get annoyed with the lady who insisted ‘you MUST get an agent’ without discussing how to get one. Catch 22, chicken and egg, anyone?
It might be just me, but it did feel too much of ‘we’re the gatekeepers: we’ll decide who makes it, not you indies.’
The Future of the Book
2:00 PM
Jeff Burk, Kim Gilchrist, Sarah Langan (M), Robert Fleck, Joe Hill, Fred Venturini
Ebooks make up ten percent of the trade marketplace, and that number is only going to grow. One of the most successful new writers around self-publishes novels through Kindle, and sells hundreds of thousands of copies each month. People read on their phones and MP3 players even as bookstore chains close hundreds of stores. What will books, and book deals, look like in ten years? Hell, what will they look like next week!I was on dealer table duty at this time so I missed out. Tracie McBride took some notes and said it was very useful. Of the digital versus print debate, one of the panellists used the microwave versus oven analogy – everyone has both, and uses it for different types of cooking. Much more refreshing than the tired old ‘CDs/MP3s versus vinyl’ analogy, and proof that one format of book needn’t replace the other. Print and digital – not mutually exclusive. Hurrah!
Commonwealth Horror
3:00 PM Saturday
Simon Strantzas, Brett Savory, Allyson Bird, Gary McMahon (m), Simon Clark
Does horror from the nations of the Commonwealth of Nations—Great Britain, Canada, Australia, etc. —read differently from horror from the US, or other parts of the world? Is there such a thing as a Commonwealth aesthetic, and if so, what is it? Do the minority Anglophone members of the Commonwealth such as Cyprus or India have a commonwealth aesthetic?Alas, Allyson Bird was not at WHC – seems she’s emigrated to New Zealand. Speaking of NZ, this was a panel that was lacking from the start in that it only had British and Canadian writers on board – no representation from our Antipodean friends. I mentioned this to Tracie the night before, and as Gary McMahon was moderating I was going to ask him if he’d consider putting Tracie on the panel but she looked at me in horror and said ‘don’t you dare!’
Still, she spoke up from the audience and there was a very lively, friendly and revealing discussion on the differences between UK horror and USA horror. Canadian dark fiction has much in common with Aussie/NZ horror in that the environment is a big player; with Oz anything can kill you, even the sun at 10 o’clock in the morning.
What sets UK horror apart is the age of our country – and therefore, the environment that influences UK writers. The USA, Canada and Oz/NZ are relatively new countries, and so history tends to take a back seat to the environment and the sheer scale of these enormous countries.
Another thing I learned was that the most recent works in UK horror are primarily working class/blue collar, a world apart from the horror fiction of yore when class played a big role in stories – Dennis Wheatley’s work was referred to as a prime example of this. I breathed a big sigh of relief because (shameless plug alert)
The Caretakers is a book that fits well with this new world. A Cambridge College-set novel would normally be told through the eyes of the academics and Fellows, a la Jonathan Aycliffe, MR James (and even Tom Sharpe, for
Porterhouse Blue). My main characters are a nightclub doorman and an alcoholic van driver. More
Porterhouse Blue-Collar, so it’s nice to know I’ve got that right…
A great panel discussion, and one of the highlights of WHC for me. As we’re gaining new members in the UK Dave Youngquist wanted to see what the industry had to say on the differences between USA and Commonwealth horror. He introduced himself – and the company – to the panellists afterwards and gave them a copy of our
Spectrum Collection.
Mass signing – 7.00 p.m.
“What? We have to do this? But no-one knows me! What if they stick me next to Brian Keene or F Paul Wilson and people ignore me?”
And so on. I needn’t have worried. Although the WHC committee f*cked up again by splitting us up (we were supposed to be in one group) at least we were in two groups and could rely on each other for support. Sylvia Schults made up a name-banner for me because one wasn’t in my goodie bag/welcome envelope, and I decided to bring more English chocolate in. The idea was to get people to sample Bournville’s finest, and while they drooled and rolled their eyes in ecstatic appreciation of English chocolate, I would then plug
The Caretakers to them. “Like English chocolate? Then you’ll love English horror, etc.”
Got some snifters, but no sales. Didn’t help that Stephanie Tryda was sitting next to me knocking out her books for $10 each…some folk tried to knock me down to 50% of the cover price, but we didn’t have the go-ahead from our guv’nor for that – it was agreed that it would be unfair on those who’d paid full price for our books to learn that we’d sold the rest at a discount.
Still, many people I spoke to were interested in what we were selling and were happy to take a catalogue away for further reference. That’s another thing I learned on the panels: established authors spoke of how potential buyers would make notes on what the authors were selling but wouldn’t buy the books there and then. That’s because those buyers went to the Kindle and B&N stores and bought the digital versions instead…so we had nothing to worry about.
I don’t have the final figures, but I do know that of the twenty-odd copies of my book at WHC twelve were sold and three were given as complimentary copies.
Sylvia Schults’
Taming of the Werewolf and Tracie McBride’s
Ghosts Can Bleed were our main sellers – I think the girls sold about 80% of their books! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: as good as Dark Continents Publishing is, it’s our ladies who are the true stars. Serenity J Banks’
The Left Hand is an outstanding novel, and it would’ve flown off the table if she’d been there – there’s nothing like the author being there in person to promote their own works. As with John Irving’s wonderful collections (of which I purchased two) and Dave Jeffrey’s
Necropolis Rising, we did our best to promote them and sold a fair few, but nowhere near as many if we’d had the authors there. We pimped and promoted and whored and hustled: but we didn’t judge our success on sales alone. We were there to launch ourselves in style, with professionalism, enthusiasm and style.
The horror fiction world was watching us, and secretly judging us – remember, a world-wide authors’ co-operative has never been attempted before – and I’m pleased to say we came out well.
Del Howison took two copies of each of our books to sell in his world-famous Dark Delicacies bookshop; a copy of
Necropolis Rising was sold to a screenwriter who’s on the lookout for more zombie material to bring to the screen; and a member of the HWA took some of our books to be considered for the longlist of next year’s Stoker Awards.
Other plus points? John Prescott’s face every time Brian Keene walked by us in the Dealer Room – John looked like he wanted to jump up and smack him one. Hilarious. Meeting Stephanie Tryda (author of
Let It Bleed) and various members of the
M is for Monster anthology. Also distant relation Bert Chamberlin, who I bumped into last year at Brighton.
Low points? The Guy N Smith bashing from certain English members at the Dark Recesses party on Friday was tiresome, but too ignorant and ill-informed to take seriously. It wasn’t even worth getting insulted by, although I did say a few things to put them in their places…
The bar at the Doubletree was shit. No other words for it, it was dire. Didn’t open until 3 p.m. most days, which for thirsty/alcoholic writers wanting to network properly was a sore point.
It also meant loss of income to the hotel because we went over to the bars opposite – especially after the experience of drinking there! I’ve only had one negative experience with the Americans here: everyone I’ve met has been so friendly, polite and courteous, apart from the miserable old cow behind the bar at the Doubletree. John P tried to take his Amaretto Sour back because it hadn’t been measured properly and she refused point blank to even listen to him. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it, I did it myself,’ she snapped. Not even the offer of a refund or a fresh drink. Doubletree hotel owners reading this, take note. Because we’re not the only ones who felt this way. We met quite a few people in the other bars who swore they’d never buy a drink in the Doubletree again after being served by that woman.
Comparisons with WHC 2010 Brighton? Well, of the two, Brighton won hands down. The goodie bags, the panels and the launch parties at Brighton rocked. To be fair to Austin, there was no way they could’ve competed, and they did a very solid job. I would’ve loved another Heather Graham Party like last year, though…
Still, minor quibbles. Next week, how I watched a hobo with a shotgun clear up the town, ate some alligator and cuddled a Burmese Python, and was convinced Bert Chamberlin was stalking me when I bumped into him in San Antonio.
After visiting Davey Crockett’s last stand, I also forgot to remember the Alamo, which is unforgiveable considering all those famous actors!
All of these are true…