{"id":909,"date":"2011-04-10T10:39:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-10T18:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=909"},"modified":"2011-04-10T10:41:51","modified_gmt":"2011-04-10T18:41:51","slug":"rt-virgin-no-more-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/?p=909","title":{"rendered":"RT Virgin No More, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a long while since I\u2019ve updated my blog, even longer since I\u2019ve updated regularly. Yesterday was my birthday, a great time to turn over a new leaf, and since I\u2019m trying to be a good girl, I will attempt this blogging thing once again.<\/p>\n

For Drew, and for any others who miraculously still follow Alien Barbecue, I know I still owe you many a post about my trip last October. I\u2019ll get to that, I promise. But this past week, it was all about RT, RT, RT.<\/p>\n

RT stands for Romantic Times \u2014\u00a0they publish a magazine full of book reviews in the romance genre<\/a>, and every year for the past 28 years, they have a convention<\/a> where readers, authors, and other industry professionals meet. I\u2019ve been in this business since 2003, and until this year, I had never attended the convention. I\u2019m a cover artist, after all, and the convention isn\u2019t really targeted toward someone like me but really more toward the aspiring author than anything. So I simply couldn\u2019t justify the cost.<\/p>\n

However, this year I went.<\/p>\n

It was held in Los Angeles this year, so that helped me make this decision. Another thing that helped is the increased profile of the ebook industry and therefore the increased attention to it and the independent publishers at RT as well. They even had a spotlight on graphic novels, too \u2014\u00a0a definite plus.<\/p>\n

So how could I not go? And now having gone, I\u2019m glad I went. For those waiting to hear from me about it, here\u2019s my take on it:<\/p>\n

April 5, 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n

I arrived on Tuesday because I didn\u2019t want to have to drive in on Wednesday during the hellish rush hour in L.A. traffic. I checked in early and attended the RT Book Camp<\/a>, and I finally got to meet in person Angela James<\/a>, Jane Litte<\/a>, and Sarah Wendell<\/a>, people whose blogs and tweets I follow every now and then because, seriously, they\u2019re the Nikki Finke<\/a> of ebook and romance reading, and if you want to keep up with the industry news, they\u2019re simply whom you follow. Anyway, as popular as they are, I wanted to keep a respectful distance and not impose my presence, but they were friendly and \u00fcber nice. Angela even took the initiative and suggested I host a session on cover art with her. I was both so pleased I wanted to hug her for being so sweet and so anxious because I\u2019m a total wallflower hermit who had never been to a convention and hadn\u2019t done any public speaking since \u2014\u00a0good God, I couldn\u2019t even remember. School, maybe? Never mind that I’ve done workshops online or that I’ve actually recently been asked to propose a class at another conference (which I think I will do after all); I simply didn’t feel prepared. There were plenty of other topics, though, so it turned out there wasn\u2019t any room for our session. I was both disappointed and relieved.<\/p>\n

As for the sessions themselves, I attended one on social reading, hosted by Ami Greko<\/a> of Kobo<\/a>, where we had a really good chat about the experience of reading and the many ways people can share that experience with others. There were probably about 15-20 people in the session, from all walks in the book industry, and the discussion was really lively; everyone participated and had something really great to say that I actually learned a lot in those 40 minutes. For my part, I made at most two comments comparing the experience of reading to the experience of watching movies \u2014\u00a0some people have to have absolute quiet so they can immerse themselves in the story, after which THEN they\u2019ll discuss it with their friends, and others like to have a running commentary with others AS the story unfolds, like in Mystery Science Theater 3000<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The second session I attended, hosted by author Jeannie Lin<\/a>, was about who reads digital books and who doesn\u2019t, and why or why not. I think the conclusion on that one was that the demographic ranges far and wide and the reasons for choosing digital over print or vice versa also range far and wide. The point is, so many more options are out there, and for whatever reasons, people can now choose what\u2019s best for them and their purposes.<\/p>\n

The third session was about the future of libraries, which I believe was hosted by the very likable Katie Dunneback<\/a> of Copia<\/a> and\/or a librarian from the Los Angeles public library, whose name I\u2019m afraid of butchering in spelling so will just leave off to be safe. As someone who has used the library regularly and often in childhood and as someone who has worked in a library in high school, I had a strong interest in libraries, but I honestly didn\u2019t think I would learn much. I WAS WRONG. I actually had questions to ask once the topic got going, and I learned about Overdrive<\/a> and how I can borrow an ebook from a library. Unfortunately for me, though, the Huntington Beach public library doesn\u2019t have an ebook lending program at this time. Grr.<\/p>\n

For me, the only bump in the discussion was when a latecomer tried to use it as a platform for selling his printing services. \u201cFor those of you authors who want to make money, I have goodies for you.\u201d Um. OK. I took one of his free handouts, though, because, hey, I\u2019m a graphic artist and designer; I might be interested in using his services after all.<\/p>\n

After the sessions, there was a followup chat to see what people learned, what people liked or didn\u2019t like about the sessions, and even later, there was the cocktail hour at a bar across the street from the hotel. Tina Burns<\/a> of Liquid Silver Books<\/a> (the only person I\u2019d ever met before RT!) and author T.A. Chase<\/a> were there, and I got to meet Marty Mathews and Scott Carpenter<\/a>, both of Samhain Publishing<\/a>. For those of my fellow cover artists who are reading this, Scott is actually very nice.<\/p>\n

Speaking of cover artists \u2026 there were actually FOUR attending RT that I know of, including myself, which was a pleasant surprise to me. More on that later\u2026<\/p>\nShare this post:

\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a long while since I\u2019ve updated my blog, even longer since I\u2019ve updated regularly. Yesterday was my birthday, a great time to turn over a new leaf, and since I\u2019m trying to be a good girl, I will attempt this blogging thing once again. For Drew, and for any others who miraculously still follow Alien Barbecue, I know I still owe you many a post about my trip last October. I\u2019ll get to that, I promise. But this…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":912,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions\/912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aprilgem.com\/log\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}