Here’s about half of the floor. Sales totaled more than $60,000, all for charity.

OMG – How can my little stories compete?

Next day starts the marathon of workshops, mixers, luncheon speakers and happy mayhem culminating in an awards ceremony for published and unpublished authors at the top of their game. Don’t know if my feet can hold out for that one (there’s often dancing after–and during); a sorry attempt at wearing fancy shoes has left me with double back-of-the-heel blisters. But there’s nothing wrong with my hands, and I’ll be taking notes and taking names for the next four days.

Even in this information age, people dealing with often-serious neurological problems face the daunting task of finding accurate, credible and understandable information—the essential medical fact. Using case histories as examples, Dr. Bradley, one of the world’s leading neurologists, explains the neurological examinations, tests, clinical features, causes and treatments available for Alzheimer’s disease, migraines, stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s and other frequently diagnosed neurological disorders.

Known by medical students and physicians across the globe as the editor of the leading neurology textbook, NEUROLOGY IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Dr. Bradley now provides a definitive resource for patients, caregivers and other health practitioners. TREATING THE BRAIN is for anyone who has ever had a neurological symptom, from a headache to tingling hands, and for anyone with a personal interest in how the brain works in health and disease.

Here’s how to request an advance reader’s copy. Requests are due by July 24; we will mail an advance reading edition by July 29 and seek your reviews by August 21. The book will be released in November. Stay tuned as more books become available later this year.

I’m looking forward to the workshops, especially a couple on “high-concept for historicals” and “writing the hot historical” (even though that one starts at 8:30 in the morning!). Hundreds of readers and writers and other industry folk attend; I hear that contacts leading to book deals are made in the bars and the luncheon tables as well as at the formal pitch sessions. As an unpubbed fiction writer (or “not yet published”), I go to learn what editors are looking for right now and to store up inspiration to carry me through the rest of the year.

This will be my third Nationals; in Reno in 2005 I overloaded on the workshops and also hung out with an old friend from San Francisco. In Atlanta in 2006, I paced myself on the workshops and hobnobbed with more writers, talking about craft and the business. This year, I hope to see lots of Washington Romance Writers in the halls. And gain momentum to crank out the new story in August!

It reminds me of that study from 2008 that showed people found scientific papers more believable when they included brain scan than they when they didn’t. Caveat emptor.

Otherwise, the conference was interesting and fun and, of course, very educational. Look for more reporting on it soon on www.dana.org.

More choices:
…Sheets, Scandal Sheets, Press, News …
Press Relations
Miss Delancey and the Publisher, The Persistent Publisher, The Lady and the Publisher
Passion’s Secret, Passion’s Truth
Melody of Desire, Desire’s Melody
Scales of Scandal
Truth, Justice, and the Lady
Truth, Justice—or the Lady
The Lady and the Scribbler, Scribbling and Giggling
Miss Delancey and the Tall Tale, Miss Delancey’s White Lies
A Dangerous Deceit
Passions in Print

More suggestions?

Wow. I’ve been targeting genre because I think these books get more readers than does literary fiction (it looks like TWILIGHT FALL sold more than 60,000 books July-Dec 2008 while many lit-novels rack up less than 3,000), but I also thought that would mean I would make more money. But if no one but the rock-star writers is making that much money, maybe I need to rethink this.

Idea No. 1: I have to shoehorn some of the topics and themes I like to write about into the rigid format of genre romance; maybe I should just write what I want. Idea No. 2: Maybe the way to get the most readers isn’t to publish through, say, Harlequin (which has tens of thousand of readers who automatically buy all the books in their favorite line every month), but through the Web. Samhain, for example, offers no advances, but pays more-generous royalties and pays them in months, not twice a year. I’ve found it difficult to picture my stories coming out as e-books, since I do not read e-books, but maybe it’s time to buy that Sony Reader and grow the e-crowd. If I had to choose more readers or more money, I’d pick more readers, but I do want to make some money. And someday I’d like to go part-time at my day job; I like working too much to quit altogether but I’d love a bit more time for writing.

Of course, I’ll keep doing what it’s most important for now—writing books that are getting better and better. But how readers will see them is an open question.

Of course, he’s using new-media tools, announcing his candidacy on Twitter, networking on ning, blogging, and putting up videos on tokbox.com that invite us to video him back. I’m intrigued by that last one—I’ll be watching to see how many vid-comments he gets. His first one is 10 minutes long and gives a lot of his background as well as a chance to see his casual, informative communication style.

[direct link to video, if you want to comment]