Tor Paranormal Romance launches in Fall 2004 & Winter 2005. While the first slots are filled with familiar names (such as Laurell K. Hamilton), Anna said she doesn't have a vampire novel yet but wants one. (And a personal note here, she became very animated when she said this; clearly she's eager to find that great vampire novel - a solid novel w/ a romantic plot. Hatrackers, anyone have a vampire paranormal romance in the making? There's your chance to get it into her hands!)

Lucienne, whose clients include David B. Coe, P.N. Elrod, Susan Krinard and Roberta Gellis, said paranormal romance is "a big & booming market right now." She's not particularly interested in time travel or futuristic novels "unless you have a really kick-butt female lead." She said Rachel Kane's upcoming ILL WIND was a book that really caught her attention and made her want to represent the author because it has "a fantastic definition of voice." She stated that fantasy tends to outsell Sci/Fi, and that it is really hard to sell a Sci/Fi mystery.

Anna stated that it's "easier to get a first novel sold than it is to sell a later novel." She also said that while it isn't easy to sell in the fantasy genre it's still easier when compared to trying to sell in other genres. She said a usual print run at TOR is 4-5K, and that the sell through is between 2-3K. They both agreed that authors should strive (for a first book) of 97,000 to 110,000 words. Any more than that, and the spine of the book becomes too fat to fit in the one-inch rack space available. In other words, you write a shorter novel and the bookseller can fit 3 of your novels in the 1-inch rackspace as opposed to just one novel. On average, 1 out of every 3 books sells. So...better to have 3 of your books on that rack than one fat one.

Other tidbits: 50% of all market sales come from the "Retail Market," which is Waldenbooks, Barnes & Nobels and Borders. A smaller percentage comes from the Independent Market (ID Market).

As for self-promotion, don't bother with bookmarks or postcards - you'll be wasting your money. Instead, if you want something to hand out, order chip clips, nail files with info about the book (Anna said she likes those and has seen people go for something like that), or pens - something useful folks can use. Instead of doing booksignings, do workshops (you'll waste a lot of time just sitting at a table waiting for people to come by and buy your book). And have a Web site, with keywords that the search engines will find, and if you're "a really interesting person" you should consider adding a blog to your site but you should never just gripe in that blog (or worse yet, slam publishers in your blog!) just keep things interesting.

Anyway, Donlad Maass said to keep a query letter short. All he wants to see in the query letter is: the title of the book, the catergory where it would fall in the bookstores, where the story is set, and the problem the protagonist faces/that one detail unlike anything else.

He also said he doesn't read the synopsis first - he puts it behind the manuscript and starts reading page 1 of Chapter 1 because he wants to read exactly what the reader will read. (And when he said this, all the other agents on the panel nodded their heads, one saying they don't even need the synopsis, just tell them in that short query, in that one sentence of the "detail unlike anything else" what the book is about." Hmmm...

And lastly, Susan Meier, who writes romance, gave a talk about plotting, which was great advice that crossed the lines of all genres.

Most intriguing of what she said, was "a subplot is *not* just a secondary character with a point of view."

Rather, the subplot is all about "character arc," and the writer should use it to give readers information the main character doesn't have. This subplot should dovetail with the main plot and should culminate at the dark moment of the book - when the main character and the reader thinks all is lost.

She said the main plot is the protagonist's journey. The subplot is all about character arc. Every time you say something in your subplot, your readers should be thinking about the main plot because in your subplot you're giving them info about the main character and their terrible trouble; you're creating character arc.

She said plot points are the steps it takes your main character to get from who he/she is at the beginning of the story (inciting incident, terrible trouble, day/moment that changed everything) to who he/she is at the satisfactory conclusion. Before you write your book, you need to know who your main character is at the beginning, and who he/she will be at the satisfactory conclusion.

She said the "magic plot points" of a book are "action, reaction, decision." Action breeds reaction, which breeds decision, which breeds action, which breeds reaction, which breeds decision...etc. (She added that reaction is sometimes called consequence.)

Use plot points of both the subplot and the main plot to create twists and turns.

And to her, she said "twists," are outside forces: they are "unexpected results of a logical next step."

"Turns," to her, involve decisions made by the protagonist that take him/her down a road he didn't expect, decisions that make him/her risk something they didn't expect to risk.

She also said "every scene must have a plot point, but not every plot point needs a scene."

Now, can I write about romantic vampires?

I'd like to talk to you about reprinting your writers conference notes.

Dalton-Woodbury@sff.net