![\"\"](\"https:\/\/argyle.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/IMG_1429.jpg\" "\\"IMG_1429\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nI attended the panels, participated in discussions and won an auction for a renowned editor to evaluate seventy-five pages of text. I also met an agent who seems interested in my work – but we’ll see. I went to Bouchercon in September and the experience was very different. It is literally an order of magnitude larger (150 – 200 attendees at Sleuthfest and 1500 to 2000 at Bouchercon). This year there was much discussion of e-publishing. Neil Plakcy did a wonderful job of taking the audience through the basics and beyond, presenting a very realistic picture of how to successfully navigate the self-pub world.<\/p>\n He did not mention the vitriol with which self-pubbed authors are met.\u00a0 I was constantly reminded of the dreck that is being produced by deluded writers whose work would never pass muster in any other forum.<\/p>\n So I bought a number of books including some from small presses and was often shocked by the shoddy editing. I won’t mention any book by name but the content would never make it through a first reading at my critique group.<\/p>\n I bought books by masters of the craft and some newbies that were really good.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I went to panels by experts\u00a0 like Gilstrap who proffered most excellent advice on pacing. This is how he begins:<\/p>\n Panel on small presses included friend, Mike Dennis, a fellow member of the Casa Marina critique group and passionate advocate of self-publishing.<\/p>\n Great party on Saturday night.<\/p>\n Michael Haskins – another Key Wester and member of our critique group shows his softer side.<\/p>\n There’s so much to be gained by immersing yourself in a substantial and unbroken block of time with members of your tribe. Conversations cut to the chase, ideas flow with people you would never otherwise encounter.<\/p>\n So I came home with new books<\/p>\n New friends, facebook and otherwise and a solid determination to finish the two projects I have begun. I expect my new short “Say Nothing” to be formatted by week’s end and available on Kindle within the month. And here’s the most compelling reason to do it:<\/p>\n Yes, it’s Casa Marina & Key West’s own Mike Dennis, quietly, steadily climbing to the top of the heap during the conference. Congratulations, Mike on a great short story.\u00a0 You deserve it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is the second year I have attended Sleuthfest and it got off to a slow start for me gaining momentum as the days went…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,32,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-publishing","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/argyle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/argyle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/argyle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/argyle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/argyle.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/argyle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/argyle.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/argyle.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/argyle.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>New shoes<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>