Jul 10 2007

RWA Here We Come

By Jane • Conventions • • Tags: ,

RITAToday I leave for Dallas for the RWA National Convention, toga optional. At Blogging National, there are 150+ blogs listed and nearly all of them, as far as I can tell, are author blogs. This makes complete sense because “Nationals”, as it is called, is a writer’s convention. So why am I going with three other readers/bloggers (Sybil, Kristie J and Wendy)?

I hope to meet with readers, authors, agents, editors to find out what direction they think that the romance genre is headed. Is it dying, growing, waxing or waning? What are the hot genres? What’s the next big thing? What will we be glad to see the death of? I plan to blog each day, several times a day about RWA but not everyone may be interested so there will be a special webpage that you can read that will contain all the posts of my 2007 RWA experience.

I understand that there is alot of schwag at this conference and at the advice of Wendy, the Superlibrarian, I have an empty box packed in my suitcase. I am also bringing a few books to have authors sign. But for the readers back home, I’ve got schwag for you now.

Kresley Cole, a RITA nominated author in the paranormal category, sent me ten (10!) author signed copies of her RITA nominated book, A Hunger Like No Other.

Plus, we had the Harlequin offering.

And the Dorchester offering:

and Jill Shalvis, Roxanne St. Claire, Christine Rimmer, Jo Leigh Avon, Bantam, Del Rey, and Warner are all giving up free books for the winner of our RITA contest.

The deal here, if you don’t know it, is that there is an award given by authors to authors for what is considered “best” in the industry. Barbara Samuel sent out a plea for readers to pay more attention to the RITAs. Unfortunately, for authors, readers have no investment in this award. Dear Author has hosted the 2007 Reader Rita Contest in hopes of creating more reader interest. For anyone who reads, we have invited you to fill out a ballot of who you think the RITA winners will be for 2007. We’ll run the RITA contest until Saturday and I’ll pick twenty random entrants to win one of Kresley Cole’s book or one of the Dorchester books. The ballot that most closely matches the actual winners announced on Saturday night will win a box/bag of RITA winning books. An entire collection. Of 12 books. Rated the best by their peers. So, go fill out the ballot.

I’m interested in what you readers would like to know about the conference and what authors you would like to meet. What book you would get signed if you could. What you would you want to do if you went.

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By • Conventions • 23 • Tags: ,