It Helps to be Famous

Boston is a mighty fine place to visit, if you don’t mind the weather–my trip to the Harvard Writer’s Conference this week started out with four straight days of freezing rain punctuated only by gusts of wind.  But cold feet and wet shoes could not deter me and my daughter from our appointed rounds of Newbury Street and the Mall at Copley Place. Lugging my suitcase through Logan Airport last night reminded me that I bought more than books at the conference book fair.  In fact, I had already made a pit stop at Fed Ex to mail the books home—no room in the baggage.  I finally arrived back in San Diego at 11 pm, after seven hours on a JetBlue plane, where no matter how much they brag about the snacks being free, there’s only so long you can hold out on two bags of blue potato chips and a roll of Mentos.  The hastily bought tuna salad sandwich from Dunkin Donuts at the gate proved to be far too suspect to actually eat, and if you know me, you know that I am NOT a picky eater.

But back to the main subject at hand, the annual Harvard Writers conference (www.harvardwriters.com) was a welcome respite from the medical meetings I usually attend. The three days of talks by noted medical authors, publishers and literary agents were outstanding, but the best part of the conference was getting to meet other writers, some well published and some aspiring, to share ideas and stories.  I met specialists of every variety, including child neurologists (“How to Develop Your Baby’s SUPERPOWERS!”), sex therapists (“and let me tell you, I hear about a lot of BAD sex!”) and a surgeon who wrote a memoir of his internship called “The Year They Tried To Kill Me: Surviving a Surgical Internship Even if the Patients Don’t!”)  Who knew that the practice of medicine could be so exciting?  The fact that I have not ever actually WRITTEN a book did not deter me in the slightest—I signed up for every lecture, every work shop, every interactive demonstration to be had.  And I learned a tremendous amount.  Next year I’ll come prepared:  I will try to write a book.

Kudos to the course organizer, Dr. Julie Silver (www.juliesilvermd.com) , a breast cancer survivor, mother and Harvard physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist for putting together a stellar faculty.  She spoke about a subject familiar to many of the readers of this blog—she found that while she was able to survive her cancer, the aftermath of the treatments nearly killed her, which inspired her to write her book “After Cancer Treatment: Heal Faster, Better, Stronger,” a book which will help not only breast cancer patients but all cancer survivors recover from the side effects of therapy.  The prize for the most entertaining lectures had to be shared by Dr. Salvatore Iaquinta and Mr. Rusty Shelton. Dr. Iaquinta, the surgeon who self-published his memoir mentioned above created his book, soup to nuts, on Amazon’s vehicle “Create Space” (www.createspace.com) and highly recommended the process.  Definitely worth looking into.

Mr. Shelton, of Shelton Interactive (www.sheltoninteractive.com) gave two very enlightening lectures on the use of social media in publishing and marketing.  As it turns out, a lot of attention in the book publishing world is paid to something called “platform.”  In my hitherto world of swimming and diving, when someone said “platform,” they meant five meter or ten. But in the publishing world, the “platform” is the influence and following a would-be author has already built, not only through their professional associations and media appearances but also through the social media of a self-named website, a Facebook page, and especially a Twitter account.  The somewhat obvious conclusion here is that if you want to get a book published, it is exceedingly helpful to be famous already!

So grab your domain name now, and don’t forget Facebook and LinkedIn.  On your mark…get set…and START TWEETING!