15 February 2005

Broad Universe News
by Rob Gates

The Broads have been hard at work, both together and singly, and there's a lot of buzz in the air.

Phrenzied in Philly (thanks to Sue Lange and Nancy Jane Moore)

Sue let me know that we held a "raffle" at Philcon for books by BU members. We didn't charge any money, but we asked people to fill out a ticket with contact information so we could collect some names for our author notification lists and for BU to solicit more members. The information has been collated for the participating authors. Perhaps this group-selling thing may catch on!

Nancy Jane connected with a number of Broads during her time at Philcon, including Therese Pieczynski, Victoria McManus (who was juggling Philcon and concert performances), Ann Zeddies (who was so busy on a book that she only came for one day). Nancy Jane also spent some time chatting up some Potential Broads, including authors Lois Gresh and Judith Berman. It looks like a nice group might be pulled together for events at next year's Philcon, including a great reading lineup.

BU Bookselling In Boston (thanks to Amy Hanson)

BU tried a new tactic at this year's Worldcon in Boston. We purchased a table in the Dealers' Room and sold members' books. We sold more than $2,000 worth of books by Lillian Cauldwell, Anne Harris, Ellen Kushner, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Delia Sherman, Kathy Sullivan, Amy Thomson, Liz Williams, Wheatland Press and more. Proceeds from the sales went to the authors, so smiles were to be found all around. Sales were steady all weekend, with spikes just after an author had done a panel.

A number of Broads gave up some of their precious Worldcon time to staff the table, including Lillian Cauldwell, Suzy McKee Charnas, Kelly Green Deborah Layne, Victoria McManus, Shannon Palma, Lucy Schmeidler, Melissa Scott, Kathryn Sullivan, Heather Whipple, and Phoebe Wray.

An obvious trend emerged during the weekend. Authors in attendance, regardless of their notoriety in the field, had better sales than non-attending authors. Given the opportunity for the personal sell that being there all weekend offered, that's not all that surprising.

Our table neighbors helped bring interested folks to our table, too. Analog/Asimov's was right next door, and Small Beer Press was two tables away. Good company indeed!

Fliers were also handed out in abundance, including the "New in 2003", "New in 2004" and "My Favorite Books" fliers. Members with their own marketing fliers and cards also left them for browsers to pick up at the table. The fliers and marketing materials seemed to help, as at least one reader came by a day after grabbing a flier to buy some of the books listed.

Dinging in the New Year (thanks to Lettie Prell)

No, that's not a typo. Some people ring in the New Year; BU dings it in with a Virtual Mailing Party.

BU ended 2004 with one of our more difficult Mailing Parties, because it was held during the final days of 2004, smack in the middle of holidays, travel, family gatherings and other end-of-year obligations. In the end, seven determined writers submitted a total of 29 stories/poems. They were Fruma Klass, Christie Maurer, Kelly Green, Elizabeth Barrett, Steph Reisner, Barbara Karmazin and Lettie Prell.

What happens during a mailing party? When writers submit their work, they e-mail their name, the name of their piece and where they submitted it to the mailing party coordinator, or post their effort to the list. The mailing party coordinator periodically posts the group's collective submissions to our mailing list, and keeps count of how many pieces were submitted. Each submission is recognized by the "dinging" of the virtual bell.

What's the point? Support and encouragement (dings and congratulations accompany posted submissions). Fun. Self-promotion. Isn't that what BU is all about?

Personal Buzz (thanks to all who sent material)

Barbara Karmazin has two books nominated for the CAPA Awards at The Romance Studio—The Huntress and Covenants. If you see a glow on Feb. 14, 2005, that will be Barbara, floating on air and glowing if she wins!

Not to be outdone, Gloria Oliver reports that her novel Vassal of El recently made the Epic Finalist list for Fantasy for the EPPIEs for 2005. The Winners will be revealed at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Ca in March during EpiCon.

Gloria isn't the only EPPIE finalist from BU. Elizabeth Burton's novel, Shadow of the Scorpion: Book 2 of The Everdark Wars, is a finalist in the Fantasy category as well. Can we hope for a tie so they'll both be winners?

Elizabeth also reports that another of her fantasy novels, The Ugly Princess, will be published in a Swedish edition this spring for the YA market. If they spring for a promotional tour, will you take me along?

BU Member Alyx Dellamonica has decided that being an author isn't enough, so she's added another hat. She will be teaching a distance course in writing short fantasy and SF at UCLA this summer.

Word comes from the source herself (hi Lyda) that Lyda Morehouse just made a deal with John Morgan (Ace/Roc) to write a vampire chick-lit-like series for them. The first book Lilith Rising is due at the beginning of June with a release date scheduled for sometime in 2006. According to Lyda, this came about when she and her agent were discussing what she had to do to make the next leap in her career . . . apparently vampires are all the rage.

Lyda is also among six finalists for the Philip K Dick Award for Apocalypse Array. Having read this book in xeroxed page format from Lyda on my way back from Wiscon last year. I can't say I'm surprised. (It's true, if someone combed trash cans in a hotel and three airports they *might* have earned themselves a free copy of Apocalypse Array because I disposed of batches of pages after reading them, sorry Lyda. My paperback is all in one piece, however.)

Lyda isn't the only Broad on the Philip K Dick Award finalists list either. Liz Williams' novel, Banner of Souls is also a finalist. Once again . . . Can we hope for a tie?

And you don't have to be an award winner or nominee to get good news. Broad Pamela Taylor has made her first genre fiction sale. Her story "The Priesthood" (which they have renamed to a title she hasn't been informed of yet) will be appearing in Citizen Culture Magazine, Issue 4. It should be appearing in Barnes and Noble stores across the country in January.

At least one Broad also made a "Best of 2004" list from both Amazon and Borders. Sarah Micklem's first novel, Firethorn, was named by both Booksellers. Talk about great publicity! She's in great company on those lists.

Well that rounds out the news for this time. Keep me posted (gossip@broaduniverse.org) on things happening in your writing career and you may get a mention next time!