Tag Archives: writers

Birmingham, Book Talk, Events, News

Murder in the Magic City

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Tomorrow, Homewood library hosts the 2008 mystery fan conference menacingly monikered Murder in the Magic City. The door open at 9am and runs through 4pm. The cost is $45 and includes lunch (for those with reservations), drinks, snacks and a “goody bag”. Because of limited seating they have been encouraging reservations, but I am told a few walk-up seats are still available.

The all day event includes a panel discussion, a special session with award-winning author Donna Andrews and book signings. What’s cool is that fans can bring their own books from home to have signed by the authors present (a complete list of which is here). This is something that is really unique and fun, even for organizer Margaret Fenton.

“We encourage it,” says Fenton. “I’m a collector myself, and there’s little that makes me drool more than a signed first edition. Except maybe dark chocolate truffles.”

The conference pulls authors and panel topics from…

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Authors, Media, On the Web, Publishers

Readers get to vote on what gets published

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There’s a new site in town, Worthy of Publishing. It sort of mashes the Threadless and MySpace democratic business models, to unpublished authors.

Basically, you sign-up and submit a synopsis, samples, etc. of your book. Then other people in the community go around reading and voting. The idea is that the cream will rise to the top and get the most votes/attention. Once that attention has hit a ‘critical mass’, publishers will step up sign the author and publish the book, banking on that ‘critical mass’ as an indicator of potential sales and interest in the title.

I’ve yet to find a self-published book that I enjoyed. I tend to have to lean on the profesional book folks to weed out the weaker stuff. Which I’m always greatful for them doing.

But this model intrigues me and I’m anxious to see if the “wisdom of crowds” theory applies here. I could see it happening…