Stretching My Comfort Zone

Posted on by jennifermzeiger

I was told a while ago that I should start doing author panels at conventions.

Umm, what?

Me, in front of a bunch of people. That sounds terrible.

Art in the Park Author Reading
Thankfully you can’t see the shaking in my hands in a picture 🙂

The closest I’ve come so far is doing a short author reading at an outside event. I was terrified for just that brief exposure.

However, the thought hasn’t left me. So I went to watch an author panel at a recent author fair. Mind, I wasn’t on the panel, I was just there, doing research and such. Yeah. That’s it. I’m preparing myself for down the road.

Anyway, one of the questions was, “What’s the one thing you’ve spent money on for publishing that you would absolutely spend money on again?” (Errr, it was something along those lines.)

I was excited about this question because I actually had an immediate answer.

It’s a tossup for me between a cover designer and an editor.

Although people say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” they absolutely do. Discarded Dragons sells way better than The Adventure and a good chunk of why is because it’s got a great cover. (It also doesn’t hurt that there’s a dragon on the cover, but we won’t go into that today.)

And once you get people to read your work, you have one chance to make an impression. The words should fade into the background. If they don’t, you’ve probably lost a return reader. Simple as that.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by for my random ramblings. Someday maybe I’ll write about being on a panel…

Blessings,

Jennifer

 

11 thoughts on “Stretching My Comfort Zone”

  3. Oh, I feel that terror! I was on a career panel well over a decade ago and was so terrified I didn’t say a word. It’s so easy to come up with answers as part of the audience, but when everyone’s staring at you? Definitely terrifying, but also a great way to talk more about a topic without having to be the only one in the spotlight.

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