Laura Baumbach, (yes, she's my PIP publisher) shared information on her background and about the three publishing houses she owns and the reasons behind the variety. She started with Man Love Romances which is coming up on five years in January and has grown leaps and bounds. Next came Feather Weight Press, a children and young adult press where the focus is exactly what the name implies and where the doors opened two years ago. Last, but not least (in my book for sure) is Passion in Print Press. She opened it to meet the needs of her m/m authors who also wrote m/f romance and PIP just celebrated its first birthday. Not bad for a lady, who six years ago had no intention of becoming a publisher.
After she spent the morning talking and answering questions, Laura moved over to pitches in the afternoon. She came away most impressed with the quality of writers, both published and aspiring that are in the two groups. In addition, she gave kudos on the strong programs the groups support to help members hone their writing skills and learn the realities of the publishing world before they wake up published and unprepared.
After lunch, the most informative Tamela Burkhe, educated and inspired us to get our marketing and social meeting houses in order. She focused primarily on the benefits of Facebook and Twitter, showing different features we can use after going through a session on how to identify your readers. Seeing the actual screens helped a lot of us understand exactly what we can do with menus on the social sites and incorporate them into our sites, as well as organize friends or the people we follow on Twitter. Tamela answered questions (and there were lots) not only by explaining, but also demonstrating. Visuals in my world are always good!
And speaking of visuals…guess who forgot to dig out their camera and take pictures! Duh…that would be me on Saturday. But at least I did get a shot of the group gathered for dinner on Friday night. The names are below the picture.
From Left to right starting with the lady in red:
Lori Corsentino, Kathy Matzen, Laura Baumbach, Mary Guida (co-organizer)
Otherside of table: Tamela Burkhe and yours truly.
2 comments:
Looks like you had lots of fun and learned some things too, not a bad combination! I look forward to the conference in October!
Did have a lot of fun, Lisa. Look forward to seeing you in Oct!
Post a Comment