London Calling

For those who think about these things, here's my Loncon schedule.  It's fairly light, but that means I get to go see other people's readings and panels and...

... and London.  Second favorite city in the world.  And outside my door, a whole city's worth of research on Sarah Tolerance's London.

Reading: Madeleine Eve Robins

Thursday 12:00 - 12:30, London Suite 1 (ExCeL)

Alternative Publishing Models

Friday 19:00 - 20:00, Capital Suite 7+12 (ExCeL)

Between the disappearance of independent bookshops, the dominance of Amazon, the rise of ebooks and the popularisation of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, publishing is at a crossroads. As the traditional channels for selling books are shrinking and homogenising by the year, so technology is opening up new possibilities. Who sets the trends now? How close are the self-publishing success stories to the experience of the average 'indie' author? In a world of cut-price Kindle-only books jostling for attention in a crowded marketplace, is it easier or harder these days for new books to stand out from the crowd? And while Kickstarter offers the chance for less commercially viable works to be funded, how do you convince an audience to back you, and how do you go beyond that market once the book is available?

Marcus Gipps (M), Francesca T. Barbini, Madeleine Eve Robins, Alex Ingram, Devin Madson, Myra Çakan

Kaffeeklatsch

Sunday 13:00 - 14:00, London Suite 5 (ExCeL)

I always wonder about signing up for Kaffeeklatsches, but the last time I went to an overseas Worldcon I was surprised to find myself fully booked.  So who knows.

Now, which shall I read from: the San Francisco fantasy or the new Sara Tolerance?