Optioning

Oh that title gives me goosebumps! Wouldn't it just rock if this post was about a movie deal?

It's not, of course, but a girl can dream. It is about options, however. Not the spine-tingling idea of optioning a film, but the options available to a writer today. Business options. Still exciting, but maybe not in a "pop the cork and lets get to the Champagne part" sort of way.

You see I just got back from Westercon 65 (mini squee) and during my stint on panels and subsequent conversations, the one theme that kept rattling through my brain was: options. As in: Damn, there sure are a lot of them now.

I tend to gravitate toward the business panels. Partly because I absolutely love talking about the new world that publishing is becoming, and partly because I feel less out of my league there. Craft and genre panels rule, but I often tend to feel intimidated by some of the other panelists' experience and readership (which usually trumps mine in spades). I still sneak into a few. Sure. But the business panels are where I feel like I can really roll up my sleeves and hold my own.

In particular because even the big league authors are pretty confused in that arena. :)

So there I was on panel after panel about ebooks, small presses, the digital rev-O-lution, and feeling pretty good about it. I even managed to sound somewhat savvy once or twice, and once, just once, blew the room completely away when I showed off the insanely brilliant (thanks to the ROMANCE community, I'll have you know) ebook trading cards.

Come on, folks. The SFF community is the PRIME audience for anything trading card related. So surprised they didn't go there first.

But I digress...a little. The point is, and the obvious point I may add, that there are infinite options available for the author today. Good, solid options, not the hokey, vanity, scam-in-a-can options. I don't see any reason why we even have to pick just one. Not just one way to publish, not just one way to write, not just one way to market, distribute, design, you name it.

We can do what the f@#K we want, you see. And sometimes, it will even work.

So my advise as always, the same advise I gave on the panels, is educate yourself on ALL of them. That's right. Don't just pick one cookie, check them all out. I mean, they're cookies people. Make sure you're not allergic, make sure there's no poison (or not TOO much) and then dive on in!

viva, viva!

Frances