Alan Baxter's Blog, page 126

Conflux report # 5 – Monday

I'm home from Conflux 6, exhausted but exhilirated. What a great con it was.

Today I was on a panel all about Twitter, blogging and all things internet promotion. It was an interesting and lively panel that consisted of myself and Nicole Murphy (who has just sold a fantasy trilogy to Harper Collins – yay Nicole!) While there were only two of us on one side of the desk, the audience was very much informed and involved and we had a really interesting chat.

Before that I went and listened in on a ...

Conflux report # 4 – Sunday

I was up at an ungodly hour this morning. Well, I wasn't actually, it just felt like it. Then right off the bat at 10am I sat on a panel all about publishing options in this brave new world. I've rattled on enough on this blog about those things so I'm sure you can all imagine some of the things I was talking about. It was a really interesting panel and slightly bizarre when I found myself sitting next to Jim Minz, Senior Editor of Baen Books. Also on the panel were Chris Barnes, Felicity...

Conflux 6 reoprt # 3 – Saturday

I'm so tired and the clocks go forward tonight so I'm losing an hour. And I have to be making some kind of sense at 10am (9am!) tomorrow on a panel about publishing options. So sorry, not much of an update today.

I had the early kaffeeklatch thing this morning which was basically sitting around drinking coffee with a bunch of nice people that were kind enough to come and join me. Thanks guys, if you're reading.

At lunchtime I was on a panel with Jack Dann, Richard Harland, Sean McMullen and...

Conflux 6 report # 2 – Friday

So it's been busy but I'm going to try to keep up with these updates. I had my first "professional" engagement today at 10am, a workshop called Write The Fight Right. It was a 2 hour workshop where I talked about what really happens in a fight and what makes a written fight realistic and exciting to read. There was a good group of people that came along and took part, we did some basic martial arts exercises to explore the nature of footwork and range and how hard it is to hit someone that...

Conflux 6 report #1 – Arrival

So, I've made the short (by Australian standards) drive to Canberra for Conflux 6. I've mentioned previously all the bits and pieces that I'll be doing here. Here's the run-down again if you're interested.

I'm staying at the Marque Hotel, which is where the Con is being held. Look, here's my room:

Not too shabby really. I was pleased to see it had a balcony. Until I saw the balcony.

That's a view left and right from the room. Isn't Canberra beautiful? I think my view is the roof of a carpark...

International Blasphemy Day

I write about magic and monsters and demons and all that stuff. I love the fantasy, horror and sci fi genre and the ideas it plays with. I'm happy to admit that there's an awful lot out there that we can't understand and all kinds of things happening that defy rational explanation. I don't mind if people believe in some kind of higher power, magic or guiding force in the universe. There's no proof for it, but there's no proof against it either. In my opinion the only intellectually...

Reviews, word of mouth and Super Users – Part 2

Ever wondered how you're going to get your erotic werewolf scifi mysteries noticed by readers? Following yesterday's guest post here by MCM about how to make reviews work for writers, today MCM picks up where he left off and talks about how to make use of the long tail and work your way up through niche reviewers. You can find the article on the Novelr website here.

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Reviews, word of mouth and Super Users – Guest post by MCM

Today I'm pleased to present a guest post by MCM. This post explores the difficulties in building a fan base through word of mouth, and talks about how reviewers can help us with that.

Recently, I've had some conversations with very smart people about the future of publishing, specifically about how readers and writers can connect directly and make old-style functions like reviewers obsolete. It's a great notion with dangerous consequences, and if you're game, I'll explain why.

Here's the...

Friday flash – Strange Death

This is another piece from the archives. I found this short story while looking for something else and thought I might rework it into a little #fridayflash piece. I hope you like it.

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Strange Death

'Remind me again why I don't have a quiet office job,' said Detective Hardy.

The constable beside him laughed, a short, bitter sound. He squinted up into the rain falling from the black, menacing sky then looked back down at the corpse lying in the alley. Watery blood ran from numerous gaping wounds, ...

The days are getting shorter

My wife and I popped into a cafe yesterday to grab a sandwich while doing things around town. I was rather disturbed by the menu. Given that I'm writing up this post at 2.10 pm perhaps I should actually be in bed already.

Now call me pedantic, but that's false advertising right there.

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