I’m feeling a bit better today. Thought I’d chat about the RWA Conference and some interesting tidbits I picked up:

1. Historicals are on the rise. Now, as someone who never bought into the dire historical romance is dead proclamations this was not exactly shocking to me. Really, have you seen all of the historical romances being reviewed in Romantic Times versus the number of contemporary romances? Yeah, historicals are not dead. And Avon seems to do just fine publishing them. I figure if the sub-genre truly was dying, someone at Avon would have bought something else during the last few years. But, bottom line, historicals are selling and selling big. Readers want ‘em. That means publishing houses are looking for them. So, if you write them - yay for you!

2. Paranormals and otherwordly romances are still hot. A book with a vampire thrown in for fun isn’t going to sell - and it shouldn’t - but readers still want lots and lots of solid and strong paranormals. I am not one of those readers, but they are out there.

3. Contemporary romance is having a bit of a flat line problem. I have two theories for this: (1) many of the contemporary romances out there aren’t big enough (this was my Conference epiphany, by the way); and (2) in tough times people want more of an escape than contemporary romances, with real-life and now settings, can provide.

4. Meljean is really tall.

5. After listening to numerous agent stories, I’m now convinced agents are as messed up as authors. Wow. Makes me really appreciate my agent. He has never been demeaning or nasty. I now know that’s a bit unusual.

6. Every publishing house is trying to figure out how to get on the technology bandwagon, including looking seriously at epublishing programs.

7. Some really out-there plots are sellings. Stuff I think would have fallen into the wrong-time-period-and-too-bold-or-different category a year or so ago is finding a publisher.

8. I didn’t hear a lot of talk about romantic suspense but many authors are selling it. I’m thinking there’s a push to buy romantic suspense since straight contemporary is struggling.

9. Sales are down across the board. Since I’m at the end of a publishing contract, I find this really scary. It’s not a surprise with the economy being as it is, but it’s still crazy.

10. This was a really nice Conference. Great location. Good hotel. Much less complaining on the part of the participants. I didn’t go to too many workshops…okay, I only went to one. That’s fine because, really, I think at this point in my career the Conference is about making connections, networking, meeting with friends and talking to folks about what’s happening out there. I always find some comfort in knowing that I am not the only insecure nutcase out there.

And…I read somewhere that Kensington is doing away with the debut program. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s true. Kensington seems to be really happy with the program. I chatted with my editor and she never mentioned it. I’m thinking this rumor isn’t true, which would be great news for folks writing historical romance and aiming for the debut program.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 11:44 am and is filed under About Contests & Associations, About Me, About Publishing, About Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.