Get up and say something!

Quick blog today, kids. I just wanted to turn everybody on to Barry Eisler's latest forum topic, How to Give a Great Talk.

For those of you who don't know Barry (that'd be, maybe, ten people in the whole world?), he wrote six thrillers about a Japanese-American assassin, John Rain, one of which has been recently made into a movie, Rain Fall. His latest book, Fault Line, is a departure from the series, and is getting good reviews. It's on my list of books to read (I'll get to it, Barry, I swear).

I met Barry at the 2007 Southern California Writer's Conference in San Diego. His talk on Friday night was informative, confident, and fun. The fact that he was also good-looking led many of the women at the conference to refer to him as Barry McDreamy for the weekend.

Okay, that could have just been me and my friend, Pam. But the rest of them were thinking it. I know this because I was about ten minutes late to his workshop the next day and opened the door to a packed house – packed with women. Good thing Pam saved me a seat.

Barry gives a great talk, and in his forum, he explains how he does it. This is important information to authors today. The shy author is at a disadvantage in our competitive world, especially when there are 200,000 books published every year. Go walk into a bookstore, any bookstore, and take a look around. How many books do you see? How is anyone going to find yours?

We need to learn to step away from the computer, go out to events and shake hands, introduce ourselves and our books, and speak to groups. Even if you don't think public speaking is your "thing", if you think you have nothing to say, blah-blah-blah, you still need to do it, in order to let more people know who you are. Why?

BECAUSE YOU HAVE A BOOK TO SELL!

Let Barry tell you all about it.