THE PRICE - in bookstores February 19!

Yes, finally, THE PRICE will be in fine bookstores everywhere on February 19 or 20, depending on... I'm not sure exactly what.

Don't we love this cover? It is so EXACTLY right for the book it's - well, spooky. Kudos to Adam Auerbach at St. Martin's Press!!


Watch the book trailer!



I will be starting off my tour in Southern California tomorrow, teaching workshops at the Southern California Writers' Conference in San Diego this weekend, then signing at the divine Mysterious Galaxy on Tuesday, February 19th at 7 pm, and at legendary Book Soup on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles on Wednesday, February 20, also 7 pm. There will be wine, as we most definitely need to toast the successful conclusion of the writers' strike.

More tour information is here, and being added to daily.

Here's the scoop about the book, and you can read the first three chapters on my website, too. Hope to see you somewhere in the country this year!

- Alex



What would you give to save your child? Your wife? Your soul?


Idealistic Boston District Attorney Will Sullivan has it all: a beautiful and beloved wife, Joanna; an adorable five-year old daughter, Sydney; and a real shot at winning the Massachusetts governor's race. But on the eve of Will's candidacy, Sydney is diagnosed with a malignant, inoperable tumor.

Now Will and Joanna are living in the eerie twilight world of Briarwood Hospital, waiting for Sydney to die, and both going slowly mad with grief.

Then a mysterious, charismatic hospital counselor named Salk takes special interest in Will and Joanna's plight… and when Sydney miraculously starts to improve, Will suspects that Joanna has made a terrible bargain to save the life of their dying child.


"A medical thriller of the highest order... a stunning, riveting journey into terror and suspense."
- Bestselling author Michael Palmer

"This heartbreakingly eerie page-turner paints a vivid picture of the struggle between reality and the unknown."
- Library Journal

"A psychological roller coaster that keeps the reader on edge with bone-chilling thrills throughout."
- Bestselling author Heather Graham

"Beyond stunning, it is harrowing in the real sense of true art."
- Bestselling author Ken Bruen


Order online.

10:48 AM - 10 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

New Year Round Up

Happy New Year!

Well, okay, I'm a little late.

So yes, one resolution is to keep up this blog better than I have been, or at least post links to the blogs I do at Murderati, Storytellers Unplugged, and MUSE.

This is the round up. Um… catch up:

THE HARROWING is now on sale in paperback from St. Martin's Press, and has just been released in Germany as DIE INSCRIFT and in France as LE CERCLE MEURTRIER. (Now why didn't I think of that title?)

My second book, THE PRICE, is a supernatural thriller set in an eerie Boston hospital that explores troubling questions of what we are willing to do for love… or personal gain. It comes out in hardcover from St. Martin's on February 20, and I'm of course touring, starting in San Diego at the Southern California Writers Conference on February 15. My tour schedule is here, and you can see the book trailer here.

I've also contracted with St. Martin's for my next two supernatural thrillers, the first of which is due March 1, which is why you haven't heard much from me lately! I've always wanted to do a story based on the real-life work of Dr. J.B. Rhine in the Duke parapsychology department, the first dedicated university parapsychology lab in this country. In this next book, a couple of modern-day psychologists attempt to duplicate one of the Rhine poltergeist investigations, with ominous results.

I also have a story I really love in THE DARKER MASK, an illustrated noir superhero anthology, coming out from Tor in August.

And this is very cool. I've recently teamed up with three other female dark suspense authors: Sarah Langan, Sarah Pinborough, and Deborah LeBlanc. We just launched our own website and blog, MUSE Four, and are collaborating on an anthology of interconnected novellas. I'm very excited about the MUSE anthology and to be working with such a great group of dark and powerful women. We are collectively writing a regular column for the brand-new online dark suspense magazine, DarkScribe. Our focus is, of course, on the more feminine aspects of suspense, mysteries, thrillers, and horror, and you can read more about it here.

And on the screenwriting front – well, I'm currently on strike with the rest of the Writers Guild of America, which you can read much more about here. I am proud to be on strike for vital creative rights and fair participation in the profit made from our work, and also very glad to be writing novels and retaining my copyright.

With two books and my MUSE novella due sooner than I want to think about, I don't plan to be doing much more than convention traveling in the near future. Luckily I love all that, and can't wait to do some performing with Heather Graham's Slush Pile Players at Romantic Times in April as well.

Wishing everyone the best year ever, and hope to see everyone on the convention trail this year.

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Why We Strike
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

By now all of the country and half of the world knows that the U.S. screen and television writers are on strike. Because of my work with the WGA, I've been living with strike plans and strike talk for three years, now. This has been a long fight, and it will be longer – as long as it takes for us to win. What we're fighting for is the future.

Every three years the Hollywood creative guilds – actors, directors, and writers, renegotiate their contracts – that would be the MBA, the minimum basic employment agreement - with the studios who employ us. The contract includes among many, many other things: minimum payments, residual rates (this is the screen version of royalties), and pension and health contributions, as well as creative concerns. If we don't reach a fair and acceptable agreement, then really our only tool to sway the studios is to strike – to refuse to work until they negotiate fairly.

I say studios, but the fact is, the old style Hollywood studios no longer exist. Vertical integration has been a fact of Hollywood for going on twenty years now and the creative guilds are actually being forced to negotiate for fair payment with enormous, multibillion dollar, multinational corporations. There is a good argument being made that by now this is in violation of anti-trust laws.

There has not been a writers' strike since 1988 – before I was in the guild. There has not been a strike in large part because for various reasons, in the years when we needed to negotiate hard, the WGA has not been strong enough to even threaten a strike.

But this year, this contract, we needed all the strength we could get. There are dozens of important issues, but we are really only striking about one: internet downloads.

Anyone with half a brain knows that internet is the future of everything in entertainment. The corporations don't want to pay writers, directors or actors for reuse of their work through the internet, and they think that if they squeeze us out of that now, that they'll never have to pay us for that again.

That's the bottom line.

Not only did the companies come to the bargaining table with a proposal that completely eliminated payment on internet reuse, but their initial proposal had 76 rollbacks of our previous contract, including separation of rights. Separation of rights is what screenwriters have instead of copyright: for example, it allows me to retain the right to publish a novel based on my original screenplay. It is one of the most cherished creative rights we have as screenwriters.

That's just one of the proposals the corporations lay down which made it quite clear that they were not intending to bargain seriously or fairly.

That's how weak they thought we were. We haven't struck in twenty years and they probably assumed that we couldn't pull it off this time. They thought this would be an easy win and they would be able to cut us out of internet profits once and for all time.

They were wrong.

As a former member of the WGAw Board of Directors, I have had the great pleasure of working with all of the current WGA west officers: President Patric Verrone, VP David Weiss, Secretary-Treasurer Elias Davis, WGAw Executive Director David Young, and most of the current WGA Board of Directors, and a great number of the WGA Negotiating Committee, East and West members, and they have been smartly and inexorably working toward this moment for three years, now.

Here's when I knew we were going to win.

The strike of 1988 was a huge setback for the WGA in terms of residuals. Back then the issue was videotape residuals – videotapes were an emerging market and the WGA was striking primarily to get a fair share of the profits from videotapes. But the WGA has traditionally been deeply divided between screen and television writers. There are many, many more TV writers than screenwriters, and our issues are different. In 1988 there were no TV shows being sold on videotape yet, and the television writers perceived the videotape issue as a feature writers' issue. A group within the television writers persuaded the other TV writers to cave on the issue and the WGA didn't get the residual rates it wanted on cassette tapes. Two months later the original STAR TREK series was released on videotape and the TV writers realized just how badly they had miscalculated.

This year we have the same situation with the internet.

But we no longer have the divide between TV and feature writers. This is EVERYONE'S issue.

Three years ago I saw the current WGA leadership begin a massive courtship of the most powerful TV writers we have, the showrunners – the producer/writers who create and control the shows. The studios can keep pumping out feature films indefinitely – they have a huge backlog of scripts that they can pull out of their vaults while the writers are on strike. But television is much more in the moment. A TV show needs product every single week to stay on.

The showrunners are overwhelmingly united this time around. And they're not working, period.

More than thirty TV shows currently have no more than one episode left to air before they will have to shut down production. We'll be going into reruns and reality momentarily.

The corporations have billions and billions of dollars to wait us out. But they have no stories without us. And without our stories, they're going to be losing money faster and faster.

How long can this go on? As long as it has to.

What we're asking for, as the creators of television and film content, is a tiny fraction of profit from internet use of our work.

That will be our living, in the future, and we're not giving that up.

And now I'll post some links to far more eloquent summations of the issues
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FAQ:

WHY ARE YOU ON STRIKE?

Payment for reuse of our writing has been a key part of our earnings for half a century. Now the studios are using the growth of the internet as a tool to take that away from us.


WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT MORE MONEY FOR SPOILED, RICH WRITERS?

True, some writers are paid very well -- but in any given year, almost half of the Guild's active writers go without any employment at all. They count on residuals to pay their mortgages and feed their families between jobs. These new pay cuts will be particularly devastating to our most vulnerable members. And right now, most of the writing for new media isn't even covered by the Guild at all -- which means no minimums or pension or health insurance. That's not fair, and it needs to change.


HOW LONG WILL YOU BE ON STRIKE?

Until we get a fair deal. Because the future -- the internet -- is at stake, this is the negotiation of a generation.


AREN'T YOU HURTING THE REST OF THE COMMUNITY BY STRIKING?

This concerns us deeply. But remember, we didn't want this strike; it was forced upon us by management. In fact, we even went so far as to take off the table one of our most important issues -- DVDs -- in hope of averting it.


ISN'T IT TRUE THAT IN A STRIKE, NOBODY WINS?

We're fighting not to lose. Management is trying to take so much away from us that if we don't dig in and defend what we have, next time around they'll be coming after our pension and health benefits. So we need to draw a line and stand up to them. In that sense, we're fighting not only for writers, but for many others in our industry as well. We're all in the same boat, and if we succeed, the pattern we set will benefit every other guild and union in Hollywood.


Strike Captains' blog: United Hollywood

http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/


YouTube videos explaining the strike:


Why We Fight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ55Ir2jCxk



Fade to Black:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFkFLf5OvpM


Heroes of the Writers' Strike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7vHxw6El0E


My hero - Howard Michael Gould

http://www.youtube.chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beMNePzqpzQom/watch?v=beMNePzqpzQ


Jon Stewart on The Daily Show:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=127766&title=moment-of-zen-torture


SNL writer Tim Kazurinsky on Chicago's WGN explains the strike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd_x_ivCSKw


WGA Video Strike Log:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbzb_K8Ku0w

6:46 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Happy Halloween... tour

Okay, call me slow, but it only just recently occurred to me that as a author of the supernatural I will never again be able to spend another Halloween at home.

I was wondering why I was suddenly getting so many appearance requests that I was having to turn things down right and left - and then I realized... duh... it's October.

Oh, I'm not complaining. It's going to be great to be in a different place every Halloween from now on. It's most exceptionally cool that this Halloween I will be in Salem. Yes, the Salem Witch Trials Salem. That's going to be some eye candy, for sure.

I'm also looking forward to some events in Stephen King territory (Maine) and the World Fantasy Con, this year in Saratoga Springs, NY - and the con theme is my favorite subject: Ghosts and Revenants.

But most thrilling of all is being included in so many library lists, this month, like "Ten Tales of Terror" and "Ghost Stories for the Ages". That definitely makes my Halloween - on the road or off.

Here's a list of my upcoming events, and at the bottom a trailer for THE HARROWING, out in paperback this weekend.

- Alex


October 15: DIE INSCHRIFT http://www.amazon.de/Die-Inschrift-Alexandra-Sokoloff/dp/344273634X

German translation of THE HARROWING, released in Germany by Random House, Bertelsmann http://www.randomhouse.de/book/excerpt.jsp?edi=206989

Thursday, October 25 – Wilmington, North Carolina
Cape Fear Crime Festival
http://www.capefearcrimefestival.org/
7 pm signing

Friday, October 26
Cape Fear Crime Festival
Appearances all day/evening

October 27 – Charleston, South Carolina
Lowcountry Romance Writers: Screenwriting Workshop
http://lowcountryrwa.com/programs/
Instructor
1 pm

7 pm - Signing, Cape Fear Crime Festival

October 28 - Wilmington, North Carolina
Pomegranate Books
panel discussion/signing - 2 pm

October 29 - Bangor, Maine
7 pm signing, Borders
with Sarah Langan

October 30 - Portland, Maine
7pm signing, Borders
with Sarah Langan

October 30, 2007
Wednesday, 10.30 AM EDT
Community Focus WTTB 1490 AM
Radio Interview

October 30 THE HARROWING released in paperback

November 1 – November 4, Saratoga Springs, New York
World Fantasy Con
http://www.lastsfa.org/wfc2007/

November 8 - Cary, North Carolina
Borders, store 132
Panel, signing, 7 pm

November 17, Burbank, California
Dark Delicacies
Signing with Deborah LeBlanc and Sarah Langan
Saturday, 2 pm.

November 16-19 – Los Angeles, CA and Orange County, CA
Two day bookstore signing drop-in tour, with Sarah Langan and Deborah LeBlanc

November 23, Charlotte, North Carolina
Borders, store 36
7 pm panel, signing

December 1, Raleigh, North Carolina
Borders, store 365
3 pm panel, signing

December 2, Raleigh, North Carolina
Boylan Heights ArtWalk
Signing, 410 Boylan Ave. 1-5 pm

December 6, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Borders, store 338
7 pm panel, signing


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upcoming in 2008:

THE PRICE will be released in hardcover, January 30

Tour information to be announced.

February 15-18, San Diego, California
Southern California Writers Conference
http://www.writersconference.com/scwcmain.html
Workshop instructor, panels and signing

March 4, Gastonia, North Carolina
Gaston County Library
Reading/signing 7 pm.

March 6-9 Denver, Colorado
Left Coast Crime
http://www.leftcoastcrime.org/2008/
Panels and signing TBA

March 27-30 Salt Lake City, Utah
World Horror Convention
http://www.whc2008.org/
Panels and signings with the women of MUSE:
Sarah Langan, Sarah Pinborough and Deborah Le Blanc

April 5, Houma, Louisiana
Bent Pages Writers' Workshop
Instructor

April 16-20, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
Romantic Times Booklovers' Convention
http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Agenda.aspx?e=9048bd41-a548-4c7a-8d9f-2704d2161681
- Thriller panels
- Bookstore owners' breakfast
- Club RT
- Signings
- Heather Graham's Vampire Dinner Theater performance

May 27-31, New Orleans, Louisiana
Pen to Press Writers' Retreat
http://www.pentopressretreat.com/index.cfm
Instructor

Also coming in Spring 2008: THE DARKER MASK
An illustrated noir superhero anthology from Tor Books, including
"The Edge of Seventeen", by Alexandra Sokoloff


See THE HARROWING on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=bFpRLP_2J1A

6:53 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Live dark women on The Lost and The Damned, tonight!

Tonight at 9 pm Eastern, October 15, dark suspense novelists Sarah Pinborough, Deborah Le Blanc, Sarah Langan and Alexandra Sokoloff will be chatting with moderator Monica Smith on The Lost and The Damned website. Come get spooked for Halloween!

MUSE is the collective name for novelists Deb LeBlanc, Sarah Langan, Alexandra Sokoloff, and Sarah Pinborough. The four women met at WHC 07 and, despite coming from parts of the world as distant as the deep south and the UK, instantly recognised in each other a shared ambition, humour and drive along with of course a love of the, horror/suspense/thriller genres. An instant bond was formed, and after a flurry of emails, so was MUSE.The women are working on a very unique collaborative book project (soon to be announced), and will all be tutors at the 2008 Pen to Press Retreat in New Orleans as well as attending WFC 07 and WHC 08. They hope to undertake signing tours together and have a series of other exciting projects in the pipeline.

http://www.musefour.com/muse/index.php

Sarah Pinborough is the author of four mass-market horror novels, The Hidden, The Reckoning, Breeding Ground (nominated for a BFS Award for Best Novel),and The Taken, all published by Leisure Books in New York. The fifth novel, Tower Hill is due out July '08. She also has a novella 'The Language of Dying' due out from PS Publishing in the UK in Dec 08. Her short stories can be found most recently in 'Summer Chills' ed Stephen Jones. (Carrol & Graf), and the upcoming 'British Invasion' from Cemetery Dance. Publisher's Weekly has compared Sarah's writing to Dean Koontz and Bentley Little. When not writing, Sarah spends most of her time hinking about what to write next, talking to her cats, planning an escape to America and drinking wine…. Sarah Pinborough currently lives and works in Milton Keynes, England and is a member of MUSE.

Award-winning author Deborah LeBlanc, is a business owner, a licensed death scene investigator, and an active member of two national paranormal investigation teams. She's the President of the Horror Writers Association, President of the Writers' Guild of Acadiana and the creator of the LeBlanc Literacy Challenge, an annual, national campaign designed to encourage more people to read. Her latest book, MORBID CURIOSITY, is now available in bookstores, and her next release, WATER WITCH, is scheduled to be in stores in July 2008.

Sarah Langan is the author of The Keeper, a New York Times' Editor's Choice, and best first novel Stoker Award nominee. Her second novel The Missing will be published in October, 2007, and has so far received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, and sold out in the UK. Sarah's stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Best Horror, 2007, Cemetery Dance, Shivers, PS, Chiaroscuro, and Phantom. She has an MFAin fiction writing from Columbia University, and is currently pursuing her MS in Environmental Toxicology. She's lives in Brooklyn, where she is at work on her third novel, Audrey's Door.

Alexandra Sokoloff is a screenwriter who has sold original horror and thriller scripts and written novel adaptations for numerous Hollywood studios, for producers such as Laura Ziskin, Neal Moritz, David Heyman and Michael Bay. Her adaptation of Sabine Deitmer's psychological thriller COLD KISSES was filmed in Germany. She is the author of two new dark suspense novels from St. Martinâ€--s Press: THE HARROWING (2006), nominated for both a Bram Stoker award and an Anthony award for Best First Novel, and THE PRICE (Jan. 2008), and a story in the illustrated noir superhero anthology THE DARKER MASK (Tor 2008). Alex is a former Board member of the Writers Guild of America, West, and the founder of WriterAction.com, an online community and resource center for over 2000 professional screenwriters. She sings as a Killerette in the all-author Killer Thriller Band, performs with Heather Graham's Vampire Theater, and dances anywhere, any time, every chance she gets.


Visit the Message Board: http://lostdamned.com/board/index.php

Chat Room: http://lostdamned.com/chat.htm

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Trinoc Con in Raleigh this weekend

I'll be doing a frightening number of panels and stuff at the Trinoc Speculative Fiction Con in Raleigh this weekend:

August 3 – 5, Raleigh, North Carolina
Trinoc-Con

http://www.trinoc-con.org/index.htm

Friday, 6 pm: Reading
Friday, 8 pm: Meet the Guests
Saturday, 11- 1 pm: Writing Workshop
Saturday, 3 pm: Signing with Scott Nicholson and Mark Rainey
Saturday, 5 pm: Panel: Scriptwriting Across Media
Sunday, 1 pm: Panel: Storytelling Across Media
Sunday, 2 pm: Panel: Heroes and Villains

I'm looking forward to paneling, signing and hanging with Scott Nicholson - even though I'm still mad at him for missing ThrillerFest - and Mark Rainey.

Lots of interesting SF/F and horror writers in attendance.

6:51 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Anthony nominations, and yes, THE HARROWING

Well, I have to say I didn't see this one coming. I am running into furniture and it took me three tries to parallel park this morning. Me. A Los Angeles native.

So honored to be in this awesome group!

Alex

http://alexandrasokoloff.com



ANTHONY NOMINATIONS, Bouchercon 2007

BEST NOVEL:

KIDNAPPED, Jan Burke, Simon & Schuster
NO GOOD DEEDS, Laura Lippman, Harper
THE DEAD HOUR, Denise Mina, Little Brown & Co.
THE VIRGIN OF SMALL PLAINS, Nancy Pickard, Ballantine
ALL MORTAL FLESH, Julia Spencer-Fleming, St. Martins

BEST FIRST NOVEL

THE KING OF LIES, John Hart, St. Martin's
HOLMES ON THE RANGE, Steve Hockensmith, St. Martins
STILL LIFE, Louise Penny, St. Martin's
A FIELD OF DARKNESS, Cornelia Read, Mysterious Press
THE HARROWING, Alexandra Sokoloff, St. Martins

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

ASHES AND BONES, Dana Cameron, Avon
47 RULES OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE BANK ROBBERS, Troy Cook, Capital Crime
Press
THE CLEANUP, Sean Doolittle, Dell
BABY SHARK, Robert Fate, Capital Crime Press
SHOTGUN OPERA, Victor Gischler, Dell
A DANGEROUS MAN, Charlie Huston, Ballantine
SNAKESKIN SHAMISEN, Naomi Hirahara, Bantam Dell - Delta

BEST SHORT STORY

"Policy" Megan Abbott, DAMN NEAR DEAD, Busted Flush Press
"The Lords of Misrule" Dana Cameron, SUGARPLUMS AND SCANDAL, Avon
"Cranked" Bill Crider, DAMN NEAR DEAD, Busted Flush Press
"Sleeping with the Plush" Toni Kelner, Alfred Hitchcock Mag
"My Father's Secret," Simon Wood, Crime Spree Magazine, Bcon Spec
Issue '06
"After the Fall," Elaine Viets, Alfred Hitchcock Mag

BEST CRITICAL NON-FICTION

MYSTERY MUSES, Jim Huang/Austin Lugar, Editors, Crum Creek Press
READ 'EM THEIR WRITES, Gary Warren Niebuhr, Libraries Unlimited
DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY, Chris Roerden, Bella Rosa Books
THE BEAUTIFUL CIGAR GIRL, Daniel Stashower, Dutton
THE SCIENCE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, E.J. Wagner, John Wiley & Sons

SPECIAL SERVICES AWARD

Charles Ardai, Hard Case Crime
George Easter, Deadly Pleasures
Barbara Franchi & Sharon Wheeler, reviewingtheevidence.com
Jim Huang, Crum Creek Press and The Mystery Company
Jon & Ruth Jordan, CrimeSpree Magazine
Ali Karim, Shots Magazine
Lynn Kazmarik & Chris Aldrich, Mystery News,
Maddy Van Hertbruggen, 4 Mystery Addicts

8:01 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Report on Book Expo America

I posted this report on Book Expo America (in NYC last weekend) on Murderati.com but wanted to pass it on here as well.

I've been to a LOT of conferences, workshops, and conventions this year and it's my impression that the two most useful/important for debut authors are ALA (the American Library Association Conference) and BEA.

BEA and ALA have a tremendous lot in common (well, I say this mostly because of their size and because they're both trade shows.) These shows are huge. HUGE - I heard 30,000 attendees for BEA this year. Publishers and distributors set up corporate booths in rows of aisles and aisles and aisles and aisles across a massive convention hall (there were 4500 distinct booths in one hall alone, which gives you some idea), and booksellers and librarians and authors wander the aisles doing business, taking meetings and grabbing bagload after bagload of free books, ARCs and SWAG.

This was my second BEA – I signed ARCs of THE HARROWING last year, and this year I could sign actual books. I remember my first impression of BEA last year as total overwhelm - so many people you could barely get around in the aisles, so many booksellers and librarians to talk to, so many authors to meet. I wasn't the only one with a completely glazed look in my eyes within an hour. And this year, the first day (Friday) was even more insane. There was something seriously wrong with the air conditioning and the wall-to-wall people in each aisle turned the whole place into a tropical nightmare. Luckily I knew to layer and instantly stripped down to bare arms and sandals, but other people were really suffering and I think the next two days were much lighter than they would have been because so many people weren't up for a repeat of Friday (plus, you know, all of New York was out there singing its siren song...)

But (atomospheric conditions aside) Book Expo America is self-billed as "The Premier Event Serving the Book Publishing Industry". And this year bestselling author Heather Graham told some new authors bluntly that BEA is the most important thing you can do all year for your career.

So what does a new author do there, exactly?

Well, first of all, if you're lucky, your publisher takes you and you do signings in the publisher's booth. Not every debut author gets to go – not by a long shot. For one thing, BEA is mostly to introduce the fall line of books, so if you're coming out in a different season, you're not necessarily going to be on the list.

But that's not the only way to do signings and appearances at BEA. One of the greatest things that author organizations like Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America do for their authors is sponsor booths at BEA and ALA (and PLA, the Public Library Association conference, held every other year). You can sign up to sign (you or your publisher have to provide the books, which are given away – there's no selling on the convention floor). You can also in some cases volunteer to staff the booth, which is a fabulous way to meet hundreds of librarians and booksellers. These book professionals know and love Sisters in Crime and MWA and RWA and go out of their way to find these booths and see what's new in the genre.

I didn't do a signing with RWA this time, but Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America made me and all of their other author charges feel completely at home and looked after. Sisters in Crime runs an always-hopping booth that acts like a combination lounge and oasis for members and dazed convention-goers alike.

The MWA booth is as organized and professional as it is inviting, thanks to the amazing Margery Flax, Executive Director, without whom the organization would collapse within a half hour.

These booths are home base - I could venture out into the fray, journey the miles of booths and always find safe haven back with SinC and MWA.

And this year, I have to say, the Harlequin booth (booth doesn't really begin to describe it – it was more like a posh club) was another haven. I know so many HQ/Mira authors now that it was a great place to stop by and find friends and actual chairs when my legs were giving out.

THE PRICE isn't out until January, so this year I signed THE HARROWING in two different sessions, with Sisters in Crime and MWA, and the rest of the time I just wandered the floor, meeting and chatting with literally hundreds of great booksellers and librarians and reviewers (I'm starting to recognize a lot of people now, booksellers I've done signings for, librarians I've met at other conferences, reviewers who have been very supportive – it's really fun.) I had meetings with my agent, with various people from St. Martin's – you do a tremendous amount of business in those three days. And then of course there are the parties afterward (thank you, Harlequin!!).

BEA is huge, but it's essentially like any other conference in terms of working it - all you have to do is relax and walk around and just run into the people you need to run into. Really, it works. Reviewers, booksellers, your publishers, extraordinary friends you haven't seen in ten years - they're all there in a very contained space and you will drift into them if you just go with the flow.

In the end you have dozens and dozens of buyers reading your books. You get dozens of requests for bookstore and festival appearances and can get a much clearer picture of where you want to tour, and in what order. You make new friends, and get reunited with very dear old ones. And let's not forget the SWAG. Remember – no selling on the floor – it's all giveaways!.

I really think, bottom line, it's invaluable and unmissable.

Alex

http://alexandrasokoloff.com
THE HARROWING - Bram Stoker Award nominee for Best First Novel

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Romantic Times and Los Angeles Festival of Books

I'll be running all over the country again in the next two weeks:

APRIL 25 - APRIL 28: Houston, TX

Romantic Times Booklovers Convention

- THURSDAY, April 26:

...9 - 10:30 am Bookseller Event

...11 am-12pm panel: "Thriller: Hooks that Shock" -
with Carole Nelson Douglas, Heather Graham, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Rick Mofina, Jason Pinter, Alexandra Sokoloff

...4pm-5pm: Club RT: signing and chat


- FRIDAY, April 27 8:30 pm performance:

Heather Graham's Vampires of the Wild, Wild West dinner theater (not to be missed!)

- SATURDAY, April 28 - afternoon signings: Katy Books, bookseller

then...

SUNDAY APRIL 29 - Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Signings:

12-1 pm: Mysterious Galaxy booth
1-3 pm: Sisters in Crime booth #355
3-4 pm: The Mystery Bookstore booth #411
4-5 pm: Sisters in Crime booth #355

And then...

MAY 1-4 - Malice Domestic, Arlington, VA

Saturday panel, signings, and Friday night performance - Theater of the Air

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World Horror Con

I'm heading off to Toronto this week for the World Horror Convention.

I'll be doing:

- A signing with the fabulous Sarah Langan, author of the truly terrific debut THE KEEPER, also a nominee for a Stoker for First Novel, in the Dealers Room at the Toronto Marriott (the con hotel) on Friday at noon (HWA booth).

- A mass autographing on Friday night, 8-10, in Ballrooms A-B.

- A panel at 11 am Sunday morning, YOUNG BLOOD, NEW WRITERS TO LOOK OUT FOR, with Michael A. Arnzen, Sarah Langan, Violette Malan, Sarah Pinborough, in Ballroom C.

- And of course I'll be at the Stoker Awards Banquet on Saturday night - THE HARROWING is a nominee for Superior Achievement in a First Novel.

And then all that partying. I mean, working.

I have to say that packing for a horror convention is more fun than packing for other conventions. You get to throw in that red velvet corset, those dominatrix boots, the Victorian opera coat, that fishnet – thing. Because, well, you just never know...

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