Pictures from Cat Writers / CFA Annual Conference

Here are the few pics I took from my weekend in San Francisco:

 This is me at the Book Signing book at the CFA International Cat Show. I had great placement at the end of the booth.

This is a cat I adored--curly and cute and beautiful orange eyes.  Again...so hard not to grab and run!

This is curly cat again.  We love curly cat!!

Me and author Maggie Bonham. I bought her book and she bought mine.  Her book is a fantasy called "Prophecy of Swords."  I don't usually read fantasy, but I liked Maggie's personality so much I thought I'd give it a shot and SO glad I did.  I'm totally engaged in the story and the book made my 4 hour layover in Atlanta FLY by.  I highly recommend any of you pick it up for a read.

This is my friend and fellow pet author Arden Moore and her dog, Chipper.  The photo was taken at the elevator in our hotel, where this baby became fascinated with Chipper.  They were really cute to watch together.

 Earlier that day, Arden had Chipper at the Cat Show wearing an "I Love Cats" sweater as she handed out literature.  Chipper was a big hit!

Cats and San Francisco

Day 2 at the Cat Writers International Conference.  Things are going swimmingly but I can tell I'm ready to come home.  I only attended 1 out of 4 panel discussions today.  The first panel involved feline medical issues, which I don't write about. The second was similar.  I did attend the program on Shelter Issues and learned some interesting information.  For example,  consider the terms "kill" and "no-kill" shelters. When anyone hears the two terms of course they think, "Obviously no kill is better."  But what the SF shelter people pointed out is they are "Open Admission."  They take ANY animal at any time for any reason.  So they're getting dogs 1/2 crushed by semi's, feral cats, blind animals, and a host of others. They do the best they can and then some but can still receive negative press because they are not at "no-kill" shelter.

There was also discussion on what makes an animal "adoptable."  A lot of shelters categorize animals as "adoptable" or "unadoptable," but those terms are misleading.  It depends on the person. What is unadoptable to one person may be perfectly acceptable to another and we're doing animals a disservice to continue these categories.  So, lots of good information like that.

Then I missed the agent/editor panel which was unfortunate, as I would have liked to attend.  But the CFA (Cat Fanciers Association) International Cat Show is two miles away and a group of us had to leave early to take a cab there for our book signing.

I sold 4 books (so far, the conference is still going on) but that's far, far less than what I'd hoped to sell. I think it was a matter of cat material overload for attendees.  I market my book as a great gift book, especially with the holidays fast approaching.  But the Cat Show had cat toys, cat carriers, cat food, cat tree ornaments, cat socks, cat clothes, cat art, cat jewelry, cat sculpture, cat stationary, and a million other cat related products.  And like me, all vendors are of course thinking, "Hey, a cat show.  What a great place to sell my stuff!" But put all under one roof and it just becomes too much.  I think my book would do much better in a venue where maybe it was mainly dog or bird items (or whatever) and I was one of the few cat products.

I did spend some time with Dan Poynter, self-publishing and marketing guru, and got some GREAT advice for converting my books to audio at a highly discounted price.  So I'll act on that once I return home.

I was also fortunate enough to share a breakfast table with Shirley Rousseau Murphy, a well-known mystery writer of the Joe Grey, PI, feline mystery series.  I confessed to Shirley that I never had an interest in her books until I had to read one of them because I was a novel judge for this years award. And I LOVED it.  Great plot, great fun, and a very entertaining read.  I'm delighted to find a new series I enjoy AND have the added bonus of knowing the author behind the words.  Getting up early (we were two of the few people in the dining room at 6:30 AM) pays.

And finally, my workshop.  Huge success.  I'm extremely pleased with how it went.  As always, I managed to leave out a few key points, but such is the public speaking life.  I'd say about 40-50 people attended.  My ice-breaker, People Bingo, was fun (I had people doing jumping jacks and singing "I'm a little teapot,") and got us up out of our seats and talking.  This group can always be counted on for interaction, which makes my part much more relaxed.  One long-term exercise ended up a bust, which I'll try to remember to discuss in a later post.  I've got a 3 hour layover in Atlanta tomorrow and will need something to do to fill the time!

And that's it for now.  The awards banquet is tonight.  I won 2  "Certificate of Excellence" Awards for my humor stories so I'm actually competing against myself (and a few others) in the humor category for a Muse Medallion--the highest award bestowed by the organization.  (Blair's comment was "Gee, since you have two chances of winning you'll feel really, really bad if you lose, huh?" Thanks for the support, honey.) Winning a muse medallion would be nice because both the stories are in Lessons In Stalking and I could order award stickers to put on the cover--something which is supposed to increase book sales. 

Fingers crossed!

New Picture: Love or Hate?

I've received mixed responses to the new picture I posted on this blog (look right).  So, out of a lack of anything really interesting to watch on TV, I decided to ask my blog readers (Hi Mom!) your preference of photo.  First we have Photo #1:

This is the photo I use everywhere - on my website, on the Lessons In Stalking website, bio pics for articles, etc.

This is Photo #2:

I've had people tell me they love it, and others indicated that while it's a nice photo, having me sitting at a desk creates a barrier between me and readers so it's not as friendly like as Photo #1.

And, just for fun, we'll include dark horse Photo #3:

So, if like me you too can find nothing good on TV, please take a moment to vote for your photo preference.  There is also a write-in Option of "No one cares and quit posting d--- pictures of yourself on the web."  The goal here is to have every viewpoint heard. 

I'll be anxiously awaiting the results as I comb through channels for a good Seinfeld rerun.

Dena

Converting to An Audio Book

I received an e-mail this morning from a woman who asked if I might be making Lessons In Stalking available as an audio book any time soon.  Her mom had a stroke 3 years ago and now listens to most books on audio.  But, she described her mom as "that crazy cat lady" who used to have 7 cats and still has 3, and who would love the humor in the book.  So I'm going to spend part of today researching how to make this happen.  It's always been in the back of my mind as a "I need to look into that someday," but I'm taking this e-mail as a nudge from the Universe that it's time to make it happen.  Actually, it's a double nudge, because yesterday I was reading my online newsletter from Dan Poynter, and a blurb about marketing your book not only as a paper book, but also as an audio book, e-book, etc. caught my attention.  I blew it off, but combined with this morning's e-mail, it seems someone is trying to tell me something.