Breaking The Cherry of an RT Virgin

by Stephanie Williams

Hello Gang!

It’s been a while I know, but I have been terribly busy. I’ve had a book debut with my new publisher Decadent Publishing, titled HOUSE ARREST

It’s been doing pretty good so far and I have two other books coming out soon: FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY and IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE. 

Sometimes I amaze myself about what I accomplished in such a short time. Not trying to brag, but give myself a little affirmation and more drive to continue. It’s not easy being an ebook author. In fact, I don’t think it’s easy being an author period!

But with ebooks, there is more to just writing your story sending it out, getting it edited and then it’s for sale. That’s the easy part!

The hard part is marketing. And I’ll tell ya, if I could pay someone to do ALL the blog posts, website updates, emailing to this that and the other, I would. LOL! But the nature of the epublishing biz beast, is for you to do a lot of promoting and marketing of your baby. Now if you have a really good publisher, they’ll do a lot of promos for you too. Decadent is great at that, so I don’t feel alone out there in the marketing world.

But guess what I did this past week? I went to my first RT Convention in Los Angeles.  WHOO-HOO!

And boy, am I beat!

To give you a brief 411 on this, the RT Convention is basically a place for readers, book publishers, book sellers, aspiring authors and of course, writers to gather meet and greet.

This is where someone like myself will network and learn new things about the writing craft and publishing world.

They have oodles (did I just say oodles?) of seminars. Places to showcase your goods, be they books, bookmarks, postcards, free reads whatever.

This even lasts 5 days. Oh, and did I mention there is a party every evening?

So how did I fair at this event for the first time?

I’m still beat. I hurt in places I didn’t think had muscles. The first day, you are basically a pack mule if you didn’t have early check in at the hotel. I was lucky in that sense, because I was staying with relatives. But all I saw were a sea of people with bags and luggage. It was like seeing a picture of Ellis Island.

I was meeting my friend and writing partner, LaVerne Thompson. This was her second RT and she was going to show me the ropes.

She did a great job too, but nothing prepares your body for the grueling treks you make between seminar rooms, your hotel room (I would crash with her between events), the parties, going to get something to eat, networking with other authors, readers and promoters, and setting up your own table at CLUB RT.

WHEW!

The noise level is unbelievable. The distance between venues SEEM short, but walk back and forth, four to six times a day and ask your feet how short those walks are.

Oh, I even did an ebook signing. This was a pretty bold move considering I didn’t know what the heck I was doing and this was my first RT. LOL!

Now the parties. They were great. Ellora’s Cave does the kick off party. FAB-U-LOUS. And I danced! Not the minuet. But really danced. Haven’t done that in a good minute. LaVerne and I kept saying that we were just going to pop our heads in and just see what’s going on, because by this time we are already feeling the burn—all over! But it never turned out that way. We stayed and partied.

Okay, I saved the best for last!

So what was the best thing about this convention? EVERYTHING! Especially meeting my Publishers at Decadent and my fellow writers.  I’ve been emailing them back and forth, getting my edits from three different editors and talking with them through emails. So it was so wonderful to met them and put faces to the names.

Also it was great seeing the writers of Decadent. I see all these great books I want to add to my TBR pile and now I have the names that go with the books! They are a great bunch of women and men (yes, men write romance/erotica too)  and I’m not just saying that. These women are fun, professional and on top of their game. They also made my first time an enjoyable one.

Next year, RT is in Chi Town. And guess what? Since I broke my RT cherry, I feel like a pro now, so you’ll be seeing me there!