Diane Williams is a Jersey girl born and raised in Newark, but now she’s one of my neighbors in Upper Marlboro, MD., a suburb on the other side of DC.  She’s a writer and publisher (22nd Century Press) and when she didn’t see a social network that was what she wanted, she created one herself!

She designed Black Author Showcase to help writers in creating, preparing, writing, and marketing their work.  Its aim is to connect authors with other literary professionals and readers, and to utilize the latest advances in digital publishing to disseminate this information in the spirit of cooperative economics and shared knowledge.  This site is a great way to reach the African American market with writing and publishing education, news and information.  And it’s one of the places you can find me on line.

Friend me on Black Author Showcase

I already told you I’m signing at Borders in Ronald Reagan National Airport this afternoon, but now I want to tell you about one of the Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) I picked up at Thrillerfest.

In the world of thrillers, almost every book has a good tag line.  My pick for best of the year is on the front cover of the ARC of "Angel’s Tip" by Alafair Burke.  How could any thriller or mystery fan pass up a book whose cover carries this line?

"In a city full of victims… it’s hard to choose just one."

Tomorrow afternoon I greet the folks going into or dropping out of the friendly skies at Ronald Reagan National Airport.  From 1 pm to 3 pm I’ll sit in at the Borders Booksellers in the airport.  Departing folks know the Washington National airport is really in Virginia.  Those landing there don’t really care.  But either way, if you’re traveling Friday in our area, stop by and get a book signed and I’ll tell you where to get a great meal while you’re here.

Lately I’ve been exploring crossover fiction (at the suggestion of my agent who says these books are hot) and I must admit I’ve enjoyed what I found.   This week I want to share a lost classic that I found in my local used book store (Burke Used Books if you live near me.)

A couple decades before Jim Butcher introduced us to Harry Dresden, Mike Resnick put New York private eye John Justin Mallory into a supernatural setting.  "Stalking the Unicorn" originally came out in 1987 but it’s being re-released this year.  In it, all seems normal until an elf hires Mallory to find his stolen unicorn.  Part of the fun is watching the PI deal with his own skepticism.  Mallory really takes the detective work seriously, even while dealing with gnomes and leprechauns.  I certainly chuckled, but at the same time was impressed at how well Resnick kept up the hard-boiled dialog.  It’s a fun read that stays just inside the detective novel boundaries.

Thrillerfest was an almost impossibly good time. I got to talk to all the names: Sandra Brown, Harlan Coben, Kathy Reichs, Barry Eisler, Patterson, Baldacci, Von Lustbader… there isn’t space. The panels were wonderful, including the one I got to be on. The interviews were instructive and the banquet top notch. But I must admit that the best part for me – even above the weapons demo given by the ATF - was chatting with my agent, who happens to be married to an editor at Tor. I also spent some time with an audio producer. The net result of all this is a bunch of great news that I can’t talk about…

I can tell you that I pitched an urban fantasy to my agent and she demanded the first 100 pages so she can go sell it. Her husband asked me to write a YA to appear under the byline of a major sports star, and the producer asked me to host a BlogTalkRadio show. Hopefully I can give you details instead of hints soon, but the point is that the conference turned out to be a major networking opportunity.

You can get a more comprehensive outsider’s view of Thrillerfest in an article from the Canadian Globe and Mail.  I’m quoted in the piece about three-quarters of the way down.

While I was gone I was on the internet elsewhere.  A blog called Sling Words commented on my last guest blog, focusing on writers’ expectations of their marketing efforts.  Joan Reeves, who writes Sling Words, is smart and realistic, and her blog turns out to be very interesting in its own right and deserves regular reading.

Yesterday I started my turn as guest blogger on the Pop Syndicate site.  That appearance is also to promote my newest book, "Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21^st Century" and features my video, articles and more cool stuff.

And today, a new guest blog went up on "Authors on the Net," another fine blog for writers AND readers.  Blog-master Phil Davis watches over four cool web sites, each of which deserves a little attention.  Of course, today I’ll just point you to the one featuring ME!

Tonight I’m off to Thrillerfest.  I will be one of countless authors present, but the star-studded cast will also include ThrillerMaster Sandra Brown and Spotlight Authors Eric Van Lustbader, Dr. Kathy Reichs (the real “Bones”), and Brad Thor. Sandra Brown will be receiving her ThrillerMaster Award from 2007 ThrillerMaster James Patterson.

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There will be lots of fans there too, so if you’re in the NYC area, come mix and mingle with your favorite authors. Learn what makes them tick, the secrets of their craft, and what inspires them to write what they do.  We’ll gather at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, 109 East 42nd Street in New York.

If I’m lucky enough to be one of your favorites, you can find me Thursday night at the opening reception at 6:30 pm.  Of course I’ll be there all day Friday so if you e-mail we can find each other for a drink after the séance (really.)  And if you’re attending, catch me and four other writers on the panel “Soldiers and Mercenaries: Military Action Thrillers” Saturday morning at 10.  Then join us that night for the party of the year, the International Thriller Writers Banquet featuring our ThrillerMaster Sandra Brown.

Tomorrow I head for Thrillerfest in New York (drop me a note if you’re in that area) but today I want to tell you about one of my other favorite web sites.

I post something almost every day on Gather. Gather is a place to stay in touch with your friends, with your family, and with the world. You can always find smart articles about the latest political debate or that new hit movie. Members also post interesting photos and video. It’s a great place for me to keep everyone up to date on my writing life, too.

On Gather.com, you can keep in touch with people important to you, and make new friends, too. Share your thoughts, pictures, and video with a select few, or with all of Gather. And when you’re ready to read, you’ll find some of the best content online about every topic imaginable.  And what makes Gather unique among social networking sites is that each time someone views your content you get Gather Points that you can trade in for gift cards or donate to charity.

Find me and friend me on Gather.

Last week I mentioned the challenge of writing during my lunch hour at my day job - people assuming that this is a good time to interrupt my flow, as if there WERE no lunch break.  I received a few interesting suggestions for cure, like taking my laptop and lunching at the nearby Starbucks, but the most refreshing response came from my fraternity brother Gary who gave what he described as the Dilbert response:

Put a sign on your office door that says, "LUNCH HOUR — I am currently on my lunch hour. If you ask me a question now, you will get a very plausible but entirely WRONG answer that will waste many hours or days of your life. If you wait until AFTER my lunch hour, you will get a CORRECT and HELPFUL answer.

Yeah, getting that printed at Kinko’s right now.

Today I make the first of several guest blog appearances promoting my author-targeted book, "Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21st Century."  I’ll be on All Book Marketing, a book marketing blog run by publicist and online PR specialist Jennifer Mattern, who owns JH Mattern Communications.  The blog addresses book publicity and promotion issues from getting media coverage for a new book to overall author publicity and tactics for increasing book sales.  The blog is designed to be a marketing resource for authors of print books (including self-published books) as well as e-books. All Book Marketing offers book marketing tips for anything from nonfiction books to novels to children’s books.  If you’re a writer, it’s a good site to bookmark.

Read my entry on All Book Marketing, then ENTER MY CONTEST!

Like I always say sometimes, the good news IS the bad news. I had a nice, peaceful three-day holiday weekend which I spent entirely with my lovely wife Denise. The reason for that extra family time is that the bookstore at which I was scheduled to do a signing did not receive my books in time from the distributor. Disappointing? Only until I realized that meant we emptied the warehouse with unexpected demand. And it just meant more brats on the barbie between rainstorms.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no news.  Monday I had so much fun on the blog talk radio program Book Bridge that I’ll be looking up the producer this weekend to chat about a possible future arrangement. You can still hear that show on line.

I also need to mention that now a couple of my books are available as ebooks! You can now read my action thriller "The Orion Assignment" on Amazon.com’s Kindle. So if you’ve invested in one of these cool devices, download your copy right away. The Kindle version of The Orion Assignment is easy to find.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that my mystery "Blood and Bone" is available in e-book form from Fictionwise. This site offers my novel in a dozen different ebook formats, including one that is Kindle compatible.  Of course you can get old fashioned paper versions of my novel thru my web site.