On Saturday I attended my first breakfast meeting with this organization since I joined earlier in the summer. The energy in the room and interaction of the members was impressive as well as friendly and welcoming and a lot of good information was shared. Lucy Waverman, well-known Toronto cookbook author as well as newspaper columnist and food editor of the amazing LCBO Food and Drink magazine, was the guest speaker. As well as providing interesting information about writing cookbooks and testing recipes she spoke at length about the publishing world in general. She has seen a lot of changes in her career and noted how self-publishing appears to be the way of the future as traditional publishers struggle to keep going. She stressed the importance of social media marketing – like it or not! More on that in my next post.
Check out Lucy’s website and bon appetit!
Re: self-publishing.
I have just read an amazing book – “Still Alice” by Lisa Genova. It’s a story about Alzheimer’s and as the cover says…”not a book you will forget”. She wanted to get her story out there quickly and went the “self-publishing” route. I am not an author but I am a reader and to all of you wonderful brave authors out there – if you are able, go for it – we do want to read your stories!
Hi Gail – You are so right about Still Alice. It’s an amazing book and reading about the author’s experience with iUniverse was the impetus for me to publish my novel with them. Like me, as a first-time author, she couldn’t attract the attention of traditional publishers so she self-published and went on to great success. Her book is one I think everyone should read and I even mention it in my novel as my character in the final chapter does not want the same end to her life as the woman in Still Alice.
Wow – have finally received my very own copy of The Bridge Club and will start it tonight – anxiously awaiting the stories!