I spent the weekend at Lunacon - a science fiction and fanatasy convention in Rye, NY. It was just marvelous, but I arrived at a few broad conclusions that might be of interest. First, romance readers often read even more than SF/F readers do, which is quite a bit, indeed. Second, romance readers seem to embrace ebooks and their technology more readily than SF/F readers, which is the opposite of what I would have expected. And third, trying to define what "paranormal romance" is among that kind of group is not an easy thing.As an example, I was on a vampire panel moderated by Sarah Hoyt (who is a funny and incredibly interesting woman). On this panel, the discussion mostly revolved around the origins of the vampire and it was a really hard sell to try to convince the non-romance writers and readers that vampires could be dashing, handsome heros in romance novels. They had a hard time equating the undead creature of Stoker's original tome with the super hot Alpha-male Carpathians of Christine Feehan's world, as one example. I learned quite a bit this weekend and had a great time talking with readers and other writers.
I should mention that FireDrake will be released in print on March 31st. I did a reading of the Prologe and a bit of the first chapter this weekend at the convention and it was very well received. Also, the last in the trilogy of my vampire novellas will be released in roughly 2 weeks, on April 3rd, from Samhain Publishing. It's called Phantom Desires. The three novellas: One & Only, Rare Vintage and Phantom Desires will be released in a single print volume titled Brotherhood of Blood early next year.
3 comments:
Huh! It surprises me that SF/F readers are dragging their feet on new technology like ebooks. You'd think they'd be the first in line to jump on it.
I know! But it's something I've seen at every SF&F con I've been to. You hear all the usual complaints - especially the "I want to FEEL the book in my hands." Um... okay. *shrug* I don't know what to say to that. But the thing that seemed to grab most of the older folks in the audience was the idea that you can change the size of the print with the push of a button. I know when my eyes are tired, I jack up the print size to make it easier to see. You can't do that with a paperback! LOL!
Damn! I was off this week. I could have gone. I didn't even know about the convention.
-Kat
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