Archives - Weekly Update

Home --- just like I pictured it. Stacks of books to read, plants that have sprouted and grown taller, and a pool six degrees warmer than when I left it thanks to last week’s heat wave. I will confess that last week, when most of the country was roasting, I was grabbing for a sweater in San Diego. I guess it balances the heat I felt when I was in New Orleans in June!

This week finds me at Comic-Con in San Diego caught up in the complete pop culture swirl of this convention. Want a taste of the kind of creative marketing that happens here? Then look no further than the photo of me on the right! Here’s what I like about this convention --- the clever ideas. From booth to booth, there is a total sensory overload of smart and witty ideas on how to draw you in to look at programming and merchandise, or at least note them. It’s all with the idea of entertaining and making an impact.

It’s coming…soon…the NEWLY REDESIGNED site for Bookreporter.com. This week we finished the beta version, and we have it out with more than 150 folks for testing and comments. Their feedback will help guide us the rest of the way to launch, which is very exciting. When we hit send on the last beta-test email last night, it was a nice feeling. I realized that 15 years ago this month, I was in very much the same place as then we were beta testing our first website for launch. Even after all these years, moments like this bring the same anticipation wondering what readers are going to think.

I am writing this week from ThrillerFest, which is the latest stop on my summer conference tour. Some people go to the beach in June and July; I go to conferences. This conference is like summer camp for authors. Wednesday and Thursday I was at CraftFest, which is a two-day conference taught by masters in the thriller world, including Ken Follett (more on his presentation in a bit), and Friday and Saturday are devoted to panels featuring thriller authors and folks from the business. As always, when authors gather, there are parties and dinners --- food, drink and words all seem to work well together.

When we left off, I was on Bourbon Street in New Orleans heading out to do some bookstore shopping. I felt like I dropped back in time riding the streetcar over to the Garden District Book Shop with the open windows blowing warm humid air, reminding me of bygone days pre-air conditioning.