I've finally emerged from my post conference 'hangover' to make it to blogland. The effort of the weekend, despite all my efforts at pacing, has taken its toll and I've been asleep for practically the entire time since I got back on Sunday!Anyway, it was worth it and great fun to meet fellow Minxes, blog friends and some truly lovely authors (not to mention editors!).
(The photo on the left is me melting in the heat at the Gala dinner next to Lucy King.)
Gaffs - Unsurprisingly I disregarded my "What not to do at your first conference" advice. This year I graduated from knocking cups of water over people's feet and threw pills at them too! My capacity to talk drivel also got an airing and topics of conversation with eminent Mills and Boon authors with 5o books under their belts ranged from the complexity of showers to the heaviness of doors. I topped that by discussing toilet roll with a nice lady who turned out to be Joanna Trollope!
Really I shouldn't be allowed out ;-)
Gossip - It was good to get the low down on the new Riva line and very exciting to hear about the changes to the covers and titles of the Modern Heat books. The key phrases from the Mills and Boon talk seemed to be 'twenty first century' and for wannabe authors - 'innovate, don't imitate'. Overall the feedback from publishers was positive with talk of sales booming and ebooks forming a large part of the future. 150,000 Mills and Boon ebooks were downloaded in 2009 and there are rumours that Google will be selling ebooks in the near future.
David Shelley from Little, Brown told us that in his opinion Romantic fiction is bigger now than in any time in the past two decades...
Good News - My Mills and Boon editor slot went well. In fact it went so well I'm convinced I dreamed it or somehow have blanked the parts where they trashed the submitted chapter! But for the moment I'm going with the dream where they loved the chapter and have asked for the next two chapters, said they're looking forward to working with me...
Before I drift off into my dream world that skips the hard graft of writing the rest of the story I want to let you know that Lucy King will be answering questions for the the Minxes tomorrow (Wednesday) and Julie Cohen has graciously offered to write a post for us about the conference to appear on the Minx blog on Friday. I leave you with some more photos from the conference - the lovely Nina Harrington and Natalie Rivers, the three conference Minxes and my two charming gala dinner companions Mary Nichols and Margaret Baker.
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15 comments:
Great news on the Chapter subs to M&B. Glad you had a great time at the conference. Caroline x
FANTASTIC news about your editor meeting. Well done you - proud of you.
XX
PS lovely photographs - keep 'em coming.
I agree, congratulations on your fantastic editor meeting, the chapter is great, so I'm not really that surprised! Lovely photos, esp of the 3 happy Minxes at conference!
Sounds like you had a fab time. And SO cool your ed meeting was great!! Well deserved, my dear.
It doesn't matter how many books you've had published..everyone is interested in toilet paper.
Congrats on the great editor meeting, it's well deserved!
Yay on your editor meeting! I think that you would have been very memorable especially to the person you threw pills at ;). I have a tendency to walk into glass doors so I think you've done fabulously well.
thanks for sharing, glad you had a great timex
So glad that the editor slot went well. It was lovely to meet you and Romy!
So proud of you, Lorraine. And your story is awesome, I'm not at all surprised the editors loved it! And yes, I'm still gutted I couldn't be there *cries*
JEALOUS :)
Love that you talked about loo roll o Joanna Trollope. Hilarious!
Great news about your meeting with the Ed's - atta girl!
Love the photo's and news about the conference, I'm def hoping to get there next year.
Jo
x
I saw you around at the Conference, Lorraine but never managed to actually speak to you. Maybe next time. And I often have some of my best conversations in the queue for the ladies loo at these things - it's where you meet everyone!
Kate
Thanks, it was lovely to meet some of you for the first time and those of you I missed (Hi Kate, thanks for stopping by) or who didn't attend I hope to see you all next year (Jackie included, I hope you can combine it with your UK trip, that would be fab :-)
Lorraine, you are so NOT alone. I was utterly thrown by hurrying into the packed loos at the conference, between talks, and being confronted with Tessa Shapcott, only the Executive blinking Editor at M&B, who instantly said 'Hello, Jane. How are your kids?'
Since I hadn't seen Tessa for years, I was completely thrown by this direct approach, mumbled something inane about her hair, and jumped into a cubicle at top speed. Probably left her thinking I've become a drooling dolt since we last met. Which is not far from the truth, on a bad day.
But at least I managed to sound at least vaguely normal in my M&B consult. I must have done, because they also agreed to look at my partial, with some suggested revisions, and told me to send it direct to Sally W. - how fab is that?
There are moments, aren't there, at conferences and other public events, when one really needs to lock oneself in a dark room, and only come out when all desire to ramble and gurgle inanely has receded?
Glad someone else suffers from Instant Goof Syndrome. ;)
Hi Jane, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one :-)
Fingers crossed for your sub...
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