Taste of the Arts - Visalia

It hardly seems like a week has passed already since last Saturday. This beautiful fall weather brought a lot of people out to the Taste of the Arts on Garden Street in Visalia including me. Along with Mary Benton and Suzanne Clevenger, we shared a booth to display our books and have a chance to talk to people about the things they like to read.

 The number of vendors was amazing, covering almost three blocks. There was something for everyone, from pottery, woodworking, beautiful gourds and many, many displays of beautiful paintings. I'm looking forward to next fall when we can do it again.

 

Tulare-Kings Writer’s Consortium

I ambled into the Tulare-Kings Writer’s meeting at the Café 210 in Visalia Saturday morning. It’s a happy group of writers hoping to become a bigger consortium and do great things for local writers.They meet the third Saturday of every month.

Steve Pastis, the moderator, brought us up to date regarding Visalia’s TASTE OF THE ARTS that will be held in September.

The speaker this month was my friend Marilyn Meredith. Marilyn has written over 30 books, and so she knows more about the publishing industry than she could tell us in the time allowed. She talked about e-book publishers and how to find one that is right for your book. One website she mentioned that might be helpful was epicorg.net and she stressed that legitimate e-publishers are not like the vanity presses, they do not charge the author. Some even produce a trade paperback as well.

Every writer needs a marketing plan, according to Marilyn, whichever way you choose to publish your book. That was the second topic she covered. It starts with a “brand,” meaning what type of book you are promoting: fiction or non-fiction, mystery, romance, erotica, adventure, whatever. In any case, your name comes first – on your website, your blog or on Facebook. Every possible means should be used to get your name out there, except robbing a bank. Some other ideas were: book trailers, book reviews, press releases, an author page on Amazon, and Kindle boards. All great places to promote a book. She mentioned that Vistaprint.com is a good place to buy business cards. It’s not too pricey and the results are very good.

Marilyn practices what she preaches, so of course, she brought along a few of her books just in case someone wanted to buy one. I went home with her latest: No Bells.