Thursday, March 20, 2014

THIS IS WHAT I DO



After years of following and becoming online friends (way before Facebook) with Austin Camacho, I finally met him and hisAustin and Denise lovely wife Denise. The C3 conference was their idea and it was designed for readers and writers to meet and exchange ideas, and to enjoy each other’s company in an informal atmosphere. Austin was a member of our blog group for a while, but he didn't have the time to keep up with it. He has remained a friend of mine and of Writing Wranglers and Warriors and often shares the blog. Maybe he will join us again some day.
Jeffrey DeaversI met Jeffery Deaver (another writer who greatly influenced me) and he was interested in my stories about life on the truck (Life in the Fast Lane). He is an international best seller. He wrote “The Bone Collector” among many others. He’s been writing for 30 years.
He gave five points for new writers to follow:
  1.  Know your audience and give them what they want.
  2.  Write in the genre that you read because you've already learned a lot about it.
  3.   Take the authors you admire and who have written successful books in your opinion and you tear those books apart. Outline them. Learn what they did and when they did it.
  4.  You need to outline your books. You need to structure you books. It doesn't have to be as extensive as I do, but you need to structure the books so you know where it’s going to go.
  5. Finally, remember that a rejection is a speed bump. It’s not a brick wall. And just keep at it.

I've already shared ideas from the two panels I was on.
“Writing Sex in Novels” and “Where Do Ideas Come From?”
John Gilstrap


John Gilstrap was also there and he is also a best seller. I was surrounded by famous people who acted just like the rest of us. We had a good time and really got to know each of them, as well as many fans and other authors. There were people there from the very first stages of writing to the very prolific and profitable stages. The one thing you heard in each class was laughter and you know what my favorite thing to do is. LOL.

An Interview with John Gilstrap, Author of Scott Free Ever since I was a little kid, I've been fascinated by survival stories. There’s something very compelling about the notion of one person stranded in the wilderness, pitted against impossible odds, somehow triumphing over it all.
John was fascinating and I'll be reading his books soon, after I finish the more famous, in my eyes, books by our own Writing Wranglers and Warriors.
At one of the conference sessions, I was in the same group with Brian Keene, sitting by John Gilstrap, listening to Jeffery Deaver, who was on a panel being monitored by Austin Camacho.
It was almost as much fun as sitting (Quietly-Grinning here), listening to Del telling secrets about me.
So if you get a chance to go to a conference-GO! I have been to several and I've never been disappointed.
 If you get a chance to go to C3-definately go.
***How about you, what is your conference experience?***
Cher'ley's Books are listed below and on sale at Amazon and local bookstores. 
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The Secret in Grandma's Trunk" This is an especially good book for your Tween Children and Grandchildren.


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

PROMOTING IS HARD

Have you ever had to promote something that no one ever heard of?

We did. Last year. It was the first year of the +C3Conference and we had no idea how to go about letting people know about this conference. You can look at the fun we had by click the link: Creatures, Crimes and Creativity

We immediately took to +Social Media Explorer and started putting it out there for people to find us.

We were shocked by the turnout! We had over 100 registered attendees to a conference that was the brain child of  +Austin Camacho .

We gathered authors and fans of Sci-Fi, Horror, Paranormal, Mystery, Thrillers, Suspense and Fantasy in +HuntValleyInn to celebrate these genres.

We had great food, had lots of laughs and even took over the bar. We were so surprised at the reviews afterwards.

John Gilstrap has spoken about how great of a time he had last year and he plans to join us this year. We have some great folks lined up.

+Eric Von Lustbader, +Rebecca York, +CJ Ellison and +Brad Parks will be our headliners this year and we have already signed up over 2 dozen writers.

We have an anthology that will be given away and will never be sold. This is a way to get fans to enjoy new authors and their stories.

Our on site bookstore was always busy and some of the authors actually sold out of their novels.

We had a first time authors panel and a spouses panel where we got to hear all about some of the authors secrets while they were working on their latest novel.

So why not take a chance and go to our website and see what we are going to do this year. We promise you that you will not be disappointed.