I've been reading Steve Weber's Plug Your Book, which is all about how to use the internet to market your book and yourself as a writer. Too soon? You'd think so, since my novel is not due out for more than a year. But Weber claims that, in the ideal world, a writer would begin to publicize a book 3 years before it's published! Crazy, I thought. But then I was a good student and got right to networking my bad little self.
In a week's time I've made connections, some by email, some via facebook, with tons of YA soul sisters: Melissa Marr, Aprilynne Pike, Cassandra Clare, Alyson Noel, Richelle Mead, Carrie Ryan, Becca Fitzpatrick, Lauren Bjorkman--the list just goes on and on. And everybody is so incredibly welcoming. It's like they're all sitting in the nice warm waters of the publishing pool, and I come to the steps and timidly say, "I'm a debut author with HarperCollins, book out next year. Can I join you?" and they wave me over and call out, "Come on in, the water's great!" I got goosebumps (which you'll find ironic, if you know anything about the book) when Maggie Stiefvater responded to my facebook friend request with a sweet congratulatory message. I read her novel, Shiver, a few weeks ago during a time when my own revisions were really making me sweat, and her book was so lovely, so tense and well thought out and beautifully written that it gave me hope that my book could be good too.
I wonder if writers in the other genres are even half this sweet?