Pat invited me to a meeting of the ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors) - we're both not members but we shelled out $10 for the privilege of hearing two senior editors at two San Francisco publishing houses (unnamed here) reveal how writers can make use of new information and technologies on their route to successfully publishing, and publicizing, their books.
Pat's take on the evening as a whole was that they were making the situation seem a bit too rosy - it might be easier to publish as writers these days but definitely not easy to make a living. They had proposed that writers hire their own publicists at a relatively high cost to fill in the gaps left by the publisher's publicist when they move on to the next book. This sounds like a good idea but in practice not very feasible - sounds like it eats up the advance for the book quickly.
However - the meeting was interesting and was held in the Mechanics Institute, a very beautiful and historical building in SF on Post near Mont. BART. We went down the staircase pictured above, and peered into the library windows on each floor. It looks awesome and the library was open, but we needed member key cards to get in.
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