The Occasional Misfire

I consider myself to be a good speaker. I have done many book readings, presentations and convention panels where I have received positive feedback. I am able to (usually) think on my feet. So, when I was asked to both participate in and moderate on a panel about humour at the 2012 World Fantasy Convention (in Toronto) I accepted without too much concern. Then I saw the write-up about the panel. The names of writers mentioned in the write-up (again about humour) were names I had never heard before. When I Googled them, I discovered that many were writers from the turn of the 20th century. Clearly, the person who conceived the idea for the panel was either an ancient […]

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Get Published Episode 110 – Ed Robertson Talks Self-Publishing and What Book Rankings Mean

I don’t know about you, but I have always wondered about the book rankings that show up on Book sites like Kobo and Amazon. What does it really mean if a book has a ranking of 60,000? On today’s show, I talk to someone who has had some luck deciphering what those rankings truly mean. We also talk about his experiences in self-publishing and the strategies he has seen and used to be successful. I also talk about conventions since, as this episode drops, I will be at Balticon in Hunt Valley, Maryland. I talk about what you as a convention goer should be doing while attending the various conventions, both literary and other out there. That’s today’s episode. I […]

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Book Review: Evolve, Vampire Stories of the New Undead

Evolve is a different kind of book for me; I usually don’t read either anthologies or vampire fiction. I’m more of a novel reader and while I enjoy vampire fiction the recent trends in that genre haven’t really struck a chord with me. Still, I think I was fated to read this book. When I first opened it to a random page, the story was taking place in Calgary where I live. That doesn’t happen every day so I picked up the book. I read it cover to cover over the course of a week during my daily commute. Evolve has a nice assortment of 24 short stories from a wide-range of authors including Kelly Armstrong and Tanya Huff as […]

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Conventions: Not Just for Dressing Up

Who here has ever gone to a convention of one kind or another? Don’t be shy, raise your hands high if you have. Now, how many of you have been to a convention where another writer or a publisher or an editor or an agent has been a guest, a panel participant or a known quantity? And what did you do at that convention? Did you meet any of the aforementioned people? I attended ConVersion (a local SciFi/Fantasy convention) not too long ago. My goal was to meet one of the publishers who I knew to be coming and maybe meet Terry Brooks. Let me begin by saying that I am not the most outgoing person alive. Still, I went […]

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