Hoochies & Books
by Gary Phillips
Beginning yesterday, the latest Left Coast Crime mystery convention rolled into downtown Los Angeles. LCC is among several similar confabs of fans and writers that take place over a given year in various locals in the States as well as internationally. Yours truly and fourstory's EiC, Nathan Walpow, are doing a panel this morning sports fan subtly hawking Orange County Noir. The book published by the lovely folks at Akashic is a collection of original short stories of mayhem and desperation set behind the Orange Curtain edited by your humble scribe.
I've been pleased that the anthology has received, so far, positive reviews - well, only one, I think, in the trade publication Publishers Weekly. Plus we're doing some radio interviews and mentions in some other publications. Used to be back in the day good reviews meant something - sales that is.
Of course this was the horse and buggy era for while a good review means something to the ego of the writer or writers involved, it likely isn't moving a lot of units off the shelf or racking up those Kindle downloads. Writers are advised to tweet, blog, schmooze, podcast, genuflect and pretty much put in as much if not more work promoting a book as writing the damn thing. Thus why most of us are compelled to shell out our own money to attend conventions like Left Coast Crime (and why writers don't at least get a discount for signing up for convention given we're the draw (and yes, some are bigger draws than others, sigh), is vexing) to keep our face out there.
Don't get me wrong, I dig doing panels and meeting people, but now I supposed to facebook 'em and keep them entertained or at least interested more than a pretty woman working the pole at the Hof Brau. And I'm not getting any dollars stuffed in a g-string. Wait, I got it...a buxom stripper reading a passage from one of my books as a promotional video...it catches on and this spawns the first Hoochies and Books convention.
Ha.
Comments
No comments.
