Bookworms and bibliophiles rejoice, for today, Tuesday, August 9th, is National Book Lovers Day! It's a great day (or evening) to ditch the phone and the tv remote, pick up a new read or an old favorite and transport into another time, place or culture. Or maybe you, like me, enjoy reading books set in familiar places, that's good too. Books provide us the purest form of escapism.
It being National book Lovers Day has given me a nudge to update my regular readers on what I've been up to in the writing arena outside of Southern Sonoma Country Life posts and my social media shares.
I was delighted to attend the four day San Francisco Writer's Conference at the Hyatt Embarcadero in July. This was my first time attending such a full-on event of its kind. Three, almost four books in the world and I've finally discovered that there's something undeniably magical about immersing oneself in the company of a big crowd of friendly and inspiring fellow writers and poets and people whose passion it is in life to help us translate our thoughts into words on page for others to read.
Writing is a solitary affair. It was encouraging to be around so many authors (published and unpublished) who have spent the past two and a bit years like most of us, secluded at our desks far more than we usually would've been if it had not been such an extraordinarily isolating time. Even though we were masked, it was clear from our eyes, head nodding greetings and lightness of step that everyone was just so happy to be dashing around from room to room in person, soaking in speaker-led sessions on everything from technique to publishing options.
Promoting a book in chaotic times is as important as crafting engaging stories with unforgettable casts of characters. I sat in on sessions from dynamic dialog to discovering what's newsworthy about my book. Sessions ran after an early call to breakfast throughout the day and evening and I stayed for a Writing For Change Summit one night and a Poetry and Jazz Party on the last night. It was all such a spirit boost, I'm a convert after making lots of new friends and connections and I can't wait for the 2023 conference to roll around.
There's never been a better time to publish. If you're an aspiring author, take heed. And indie publishing is as respected within the writing community these days as any other form of getting one's work out there in the world. There was lots of talk of authors who have multiple books out in many formats and some with big publishers who opt to indie publish other titles of their own if it makes more sense.
Some authors are heading straight to ebooks and/or audiobooks. It's a brave new world.
My second novel, The House on Liberty Street is almost finished. I'm working hard to switch brains into the publishing then marketing side of things in order to launch it into the world this fall. The story is set in Petaluma, CA in a fictional Victorian house in the heritage home district. It is a condensed timeline which means everything happens quite quickly — in this case, within 24 hours or so from Christmas Eve afternoon to Christmas evening 2019.
Because the story takes place in December, it will make a great read during the festive season. I'm drawn to the darker side of Christmas in my story telling. The House on Liberty Street is a domestic drama — a family on the brink of irreversible change.
I'm not ready to start pre-orders etc but I will be working it all out for a fall release in the next couple of months. I do have a Reader's Club Newsletter sign up on my author website Francesrivetti.com, which I will be populating with new book related news and cover-reveal fairly soon. If you've already signed up and have wondered if you've missed any newsletter emails over the past year or so, the answer is, no, I haven't been able to activate my brain away from the actual manuscript much. Once the book is ready for formatting I will endeavor to focus on producing a dynamic newsletter!
I read somewhere recently that authors who are building their newsletter mailing lists should think of each person who has signed up as a guest at their dinner table. I thought that was a fun way to visualize the honor of having readers commit to the company of my work. With so many forms of social media awaiting original content, anyone of us who adds a newsletter to our repertoire knows what it takes to keep our connections authentic.
And at the end of the day, it's about the books. I have two more outlined in folders on my desk and I'm going to have to stuff them in a drawer for a few weeks this fall in order to release The House on Liberty Street.
To all my writer friends, write on! To all my reader friends, don't stop! As Stephen King says: "Books are a uniquely portable magic."
“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
Ernest Hemingway
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
Neil Gaimon, Coraline
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